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Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

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Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

River Song is arguably the most divisive character to come to Doctor Who in the past five years. She’s a swashbuckling archeologist who outwits almost everybody, and an unabashedly sexy older woman. She’s also so dependent on the Doctor as to be kind of a satellite.

So which is she: resourceful, self-reliant adventurer, or the Time Lord’s hanger-on? Today’s Christmas special, “The Husbands of River Song,” tries to get to the bottom of the issue, once and for all. Spoilers ahead!

The conundrum of Doctor Who

River is emblematic of a whole crew of women who have come to Doctor Who since 2010. In addition to companions Amy and Clara, the show has added some formidable semi-recurring characters. Including Vastra and Jenny (a Silurian-human lesbian couple); Ashildr, an immortal rogue; a new version of the paramilitary organization UNIT where everyone is female; and of course Missy, who’s the regeneration of the Doctor’s arch-nemesis the Master. And despite some major flaws, Clara’s storyline forms a pretty solid emotional arc, with an ending that’s both satisfying and empowering.

So it’s hard to deny that Doctor Who has made major progress in this area during the past few years.

But even as the show seems to be making an effort to push female characters forward, it’s come under more fire for sexism. People have studied the show and found that it passes the Bechdel Test less often than it did when Russell T. Davies was showrunner. And there’s a general sense that the female characters are less independent.

What’s going on here? A few things. First off, Davies’ approach to Who storytelling revolved much more around giving his companions earth-bound families, and in particular Rose and Donna had complicated relationships with their mothers. Also, the main way we see that Rose is a smart, inquisitive person in the first season is that she talks to ordinary people and finds out things, including a lot of female servants and maintenance workers.

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

But also, as much as Davies frequently had everything in his stories revolve around the Doctor in the end, the Doctor is even more the center of the universe with Moffat. (Read our whole rant about this tendency here.) So for example, Vastra and Jenny are fun, exciting characters, who seem as though they have their own adventures, but they mostly worry about the Doctor whenever we see them. (Except for “The Crimson Horror,” which is deliberately structured as a story about them investigating something on their own, and stumbling on the Doctor.)

So on the one hand, River Song is a wild and individualistic explorer, who is busy cavorting around the galaxy when she’s not trading saucy banter with the Doctor. But on the other, her whole life story revolves around the Doctor, even more than most characters on this show, and she seems to have a pathologically one-sided devotion to him. (He’s responsible for her birth, her childhood brainwashing by creepy aliens, her career choice and her death. She’s created as a weapon against him, gives up regeneration for him, and finally gives her life to save him. It’s a storyline that never quite holds water, despite having many fantastic moments along the way.)

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

So which is it: Is River a female Han Solo/Indiana Jones, or is she purely defined by her relationship to the Doctor? Her latest (possibly final) episode explores both of those roles, before trying to suggest that it’s a bit more complicated than either.

Does River’s life actually revolve around the Doctor?

“The Husbands of River Song” has a deliberately provocative title, because the Doctor is supposed to be her husband—although you can debate the legality of a shotgun wedding in a bubble universe after time was stopped, but whatever. (And the Doctor, as River is quick to point out, has had other wives.)

The first half of the episode toys with showing us a much more free-wheeling and irresponsible version of River than we’ve ever seen before. The conceit of the episode is that even though she meets the Doctor early on, she fails to recognize him because she believes that he’s only able to have the twelve faces she already knows (due to the Time Lord regeneration limit.)

Does River actually figure out it’s the Doctor early on and just decide to troll him? It’s hard to say. But I’m guessing... no. After watching the episode a couple times, she really seems startled and amazed when she realizes who this random buffoon she’s been running around with actually is. It’s a powerful emotional bit, and the linchpin of the episode, and its effectiveness depends on you believing that she didn’t know all along.

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

So taking the episode at face value, we learn a lot about River by seeing “what she’s like when I’m not around,” as the Doctor puts it. She’s a cunning schemer, who marries the evil King Hydroflax just to get at the priceless diamond that’s gotten embedded in his brain. She has no compunction about killing the King, and possibly others who get in her way. She doesn’t seem that worried about Ramon, who’s also her husband, even after she gets him decapitated and attached to a giant robot (and in fact, she’s erased Ramon’s memory of their marriage, because he was getting annoying.) She’s 200 years old, much older than the Doctor realizes, meaning she’s had a lot of adventures without him.

And her attitude to the Doctor, when she thinks he’s not around, seems a lot more cavalier. She steals his TARDIS when he’s not looking, using it for ages and then returning it exactly where he left it, a second later—and he’s never noticed before, apparently. She refers to him as “the Damsel,” because he needs rescuing so often. She says he’s nobody special, except that he’s terribly useful every now and then. She even says that men (like the Doctor) will believe any story that they’re the hero of—suggesting that her whole history with the Doctor has been nothing but a long con, with her manipulating his vanity.

This all seems so over-the-top that it reads like a parody of an independent woman, but it also feels a bit like River is overcompensating.

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

She keeps saying that she didn’t really King Hydroflax, she “married the diamond”—and this becomes a possible metaphor for her relationship with the Doctor, too. Did she really just latch on to the Doctor because of the access to his time machine and his “terribly useful” skills and knowledge? Is she really just using him, the way she used Hydroflax?

No, of course not. In a somewhat sudden pivot, the episode’s plot changes completely, and so does River’s attitude. River is being chased by the robot body of King Hydroflax, which wants his head back (and which is voiced by Nonso Anozie!). But then the robot body decides that its original biological head is done for, and an insectoid waiter convinces it that there’s a great replacement head: the Doctor’s. (Poor Dorium Maldovar doesn’t even get considered for the job.)

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

And because River is the Doctor’s “consort,” she probably knows where he is, or they can use her as bait to get him. This leads to her delivering a speech where she declares that she loves the Doctor, but he doesn’t love her back. You might as well expect the stars to love you back as the Doctor, and he’s off doing whatever he does while she has to live her life without him. The Doctor is much too self-centered to bother rescuing River, she insists—before realizing he’s actually right there with her.

This, too, feels like a somewhat exaggerated version of River’s relationship with the Doctor, even as the “terribly useful” cavalier version was. The Doctor mercilessly teases her about the whole “stars and sunrise” stuff, and clearly does care a great deal about her.

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

So we get over-the-top parodies of both versions of River, and then—maybe—we get something a bit more nuanced. Possibly closer to the truth?

The Singing Towers

At this point, the plot abruptly wraps up, because River’s always had a perfectly good escape route from this doomed spaceship. And the Doctor and River both try to get each other to safety while the other tries to save the crashing ship, before they both declare that they care about and value each other much more than a ship full of mass murderers and war criminals, whose deaths have been part of the historical record for centuries in River’s time.

Then, at last, it’s time to process the Doctor’s relationship with River—with a sudden melancholy tinge, because they’ve arrived at the Singing Towers of Darillium, where they are fated to spend their last night together. And the Doctor gives River the sonic screwdriver that we know will “save” her from death in “Forest of the Dead.” We also learn that the Doctor has been putting this last meeting with River off over and over, because he can’t bear to say goodbye to her.

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

River, like Clara not too long ago, expects the Doctor to find some clever way out of the fact that their time together (and her life) are ending. But the Doctor gives one of his speeches about how it’s always the last time for something, and nobody can change that, and “happy ever after” is just a lie we tell ourselves. To which River responds that “happy ever after” doesn’t actually mean forever—the Doctor, with his unnatural lifespan and outsider perspective on time, is incapable of understanding that “happy ever after” just means a little more time.

The Singing Towers themselves become a metaphor for the relationship between the Doctor and River—River says they’re incapable of loving you back, the same way she feels the Doctor is. But the Doctor responds that it’s the exact distance between them, not any properties of the towers themselves, that makes them sing.

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

And then it turns out that their “final night” together will actually be 24 years because of the long nights on Darillium, thus proving River’s point that “happy ever after” is just a matter of more time, not endless time.

This episode feels almost metafictional in its desire to place exaggerated versions of these two opposing visions of River opposite each other. And the main answer that it offers, in the end, to the critics of the show’s determination to make all other characters satellites of the hero, is the same one we’ve heard a lot lately. The Doctor is a somewhat tragic figure. His power is also his cage. He can’t change what’s going to happen to River, just as he shouldn’t have changed what happened to Clara. Time imposes costs on him, even more than everybody else.

Doctor Who's Most Controversial Character Just Got Even More Confounding

In the end, River Song’s story has already been told, and the most this episode can do is cast it in a new light. But I like to think of River stealing the Doctor’s TARDIS and having loads of adventures while he was out and about, never the wiser. That, much like Clara and Ashildr in their diner TARDIS, makes for an image that’s immensely satisfying, and revisionist in a good way.

Edit: Tweaked the opening section to clarify, adding in a sentence I thought was in there already.


Charlie Jane Anders is the author of All The Birds in the Sky, coming in January from Tor Books. Follow her on Twitter, and email her.


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

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The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

A hugely popular battery pack, one of your favorite smartphone dash mounts, and a (relatively) cheap 4K monitor highlight todya’s best deals. Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click hereto learn more.

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Monitor-P...


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

Anker’s ubiquitous Astro series of USB battery packs are some of the most popular items we’ve ever posted, but today we have a great deal on the smallest member of their newer, more powerful PowerCore line. [Anker PowerCore 10400 Portable Charger, $15]

http://deals.kinja.com/bestsellers-an...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Z9QVE4Q/...


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

If you’d rather carry around a pocket-sized battery pack, this 3600mAh model from Aukey actually charges with a Lightning input, meaning Apple devotees can finally travel without carrying around a grody old microUSB cable. It’ll only set you back $10, and even comes with a Lightning cable, which would normally run at least $5 by itself. [Aukey 3600mAh Lightning Input Battery Pack, $10]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SV0J3UY/...


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

Your phone is already your car’s best GPS system and stereo, so give it the home it deserves on your dash.

iOttie Easy One Touch 2 Car Mount ($13) | Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Mountek nGroove Universal CD Slot Mount ($17) | Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Mountek nGroove Snap 3 Magnetic CD Slot Car Mount ($21) | Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

Need something to spend all of those Amazon gift cards on? How about a 4K IPS monitor. I use this exact model every day, and couldn’t be happier with it. [Dell Ultra HD 4K Monitor P2415Q 24-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor, $400]

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Monitor-P...


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

Five terabytes for $110. The world is full of intractable problems and Trump voters, but at least we have cheap storage. [WD - My Book 5TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive, $110]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WD-My-Book...


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

Update: Sold out

It’s tough to argue with the premium look and feel of a J.A. Henckels knife, at the price point of a Victorinox Fibrox. [J.A. HENCKELS INTERNATIONAL Classic 8-inch Chef’s Knife, $35]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...


The Best Day-After-Christmas Deals: Battery Packs, Dash Mounts, 4K Display, and More

Whether you’ve owned a PS4 or Xbox One for years, or just got yours yesterday, your controllers deserve to charge in style. [PDP Energizer 2X Charging Station for PS4, $20. Also for Xbox One.]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-lice...


More Deals


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Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here to learn more. We want your feedback.Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker

Hoverboards Are Ruining Christmas 

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Hoverboards Are Ruining Christmas 

Plenty of people opened up a gift to find a hoverboard this year. A hearty chunk of that group has already crashed them. Combining a combustible gimmick-toy with a day filled with alcoholic beverages and familial angst is a recipe for wiping out.

Be safe out there.

Top image: Christopher Furlong/Getty

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

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This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

The Óbuda Gas Works produced city gas from 1914 to 1984 in the 3rd district of Budapest, on the right bank of River Danube. When it opened, it was not just the most advanced gas producing plant in the world; it was also the most beautiful, with a group of buildings in the middle middle resembling Jabba’s Palace from the Return of the Jedi.

After decades of decay, a few years ago the owners started to renovate the 100-year-old main buildings; the fabulous industrial monuments of the gas works are saved.

Prior to the development of natural gas supplies and transmission systems, all fuel and lighting gas used in cities was manufactured from coal. Coal gas was supplied to households via a municipally owned piped distribution system. In the first half of the 20th century, the increasing gas consumption of the sprawling Hungarian capital was demanding: in its heyday, the factory produced 250 thousand cubic meters of gas per day. In the chemical conversion, other by-products were also produced, such as tar — which was stored in the towers you can see in the photos below — and its components were separated by gravity (the heavy tar was used for road construction for example).

As natural gas became more accessible and cheaper, and the electricity used in gassing coal became more expensive, the fate of the Óbuda Gas Plant was sealed: closure was inevitable. From 1984 until 2004, the area of the gas works slowly decayed. In 2006 the property was transferred to the capital, the high-value historic buildings got official protection, and plans for reconstruction, rehabilitation, and urban development were born.

I first visited in the summer of 2006 and again a few days ago (thanks to the Budapest Beyond Sightseeing group), and both times I was amazed by the view of the four towers dominating the open space. Museums and other cultural institutions are going to move into these historic buildings, preserving their cultural-industrial heritage. Film crews, event organizers are also interested in the complex. In the photos below you can compare the condition of the water tower and the three smaller tar towers, before and after their compulsory preservation.

2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


2006:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace

2015:

This Hundred-Year-Old Industrial Gem is Like Jabba's Real Life Palace


Photos: Attila Nagy/Gizmodo

Watch How Stormtroopers Changed Over Three Trilogies

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Watch How Stormtroopers Changed Over Three Trilogies

The stormtrooper is one of the iconic images of the Star Wars film saga, and this gif takes you through the three major variations between the prequel, original and sequel trilogies.

[Original Stormtrooper]

How The Legend of Zelda Changed For U.S. Shores

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How The Legend of Zelda Changed For U.S. Shores

Did you know that Pols, the rabbit-looking things in the original Legend of Zelda, are meant to be destroyed not with arrows but by talking into a microphone? And that the Japanese version of the Zelda board game was way better than the North American one?

Legends of Localization Book 1: The Legend of Zelda, a new hardcover book that dives into the minutia behind the Japanese-to-English translations in the original NES classic, is full of interesting trivia like that. Penned by Clyde “Mato” Mandelin—the guy best known for translating Mother 3 to English—the book is beautifully designed and fun to read if you’re into Zelda at all. (They sent me a copy earlier this week.)

Mandelin also runs a fascinating website where he digs into the differences between the English and Japanese text in games like Final Fantasy IV. I highly recommend it.

The book, which goes for $29, is available via Fangamer. The folks behind it have shared an excerpt just for Kotaku, which you can read here:

Open Channel: What Cool Stuff Did You Get For The Holidays?

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Open Channel: What Cool Stuff Did You Get For The Holidays?

Christmas is now over along with most of the big holidays. So, now that the big day is over, what cool stuff did you get for the holidays?

I got a book by Tim Parks: Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books, which looks awesome, as well as a robot tea infuser.

Show off what cool books/movies/geek stuff you found under the tree!

Image credit: S_Photo / Shuttershock

These Freezing Drops of Oil Are Hypnotically Beautiful

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These Freezing Drops of Oil Are Hypnotically Beautiful

An international team of researchers has shown that specially treated drops of oily chemicals can take on bizarre shapes and structures during the freezing process. These insights could allow us to create artificial structures with very life-like properties.

By using a relatively simple bottom-up approach, a joint research team from Cambridge University and Sofia University in Bulgaria demonstrated that liquid droplets of oil, when put in a soapy water solution and slowly frozen, form “plastic crystal” phases on their inside surfaces. This process caused the droplets to shape-shift into a surprising variety of forms, ranging from octahedrons and hexagons to triangles and fibres.

The results of their work has been published in Nature. And here’s a fascinating video:

“There are many ways that non-biological things take shape,” noted lead researcher Stoyan Smoukov from Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, in a statement. “But the question is what drives the process and how to control it—and what are the links between the process in the biological and the non-biological world?”

The new research points to “morphogenesis” as a possible answer to these questions. This idea goes back to the 1950s, when Alan Turing proposed that morphogenesis is the result of local chemical reactions that cause a substance to spread through space. As this research shows, Turing was clearly on to something.

These Freezing Drops of Oil Are Hypnotically Beautiful

(Credit: N. Denkov et al., 2015/Nature)

By slowly freezing liquid drops of oily hexadecane floating on soapy water, the researchers coaxed the droplets into shifting through a variety of crystal-like forms. What’s more, the droplets also shifted back to their original shapes, when the solution was re-warmed.

These Freezing Drops of Oil Are Hypnotically Beautiful

(Credit: N. Denkov et al., 2015/Nature)

This self-assembling process is driven by a crystal phase, or wax-like layer, that forms beneath the surface of the droplets, and is likely controlled by the physical properties of the materials themselves. Smoukov explains:

Plastic crystals are a special state of matter that is like the alter ego of the liquid crystals used in many TV screens. Both liquid crystals and plastic crystals can be thought of as transitional stages between liquid and solid. While liquid crystals point their molecules in defined directions like a crystal, they have no long-range order and flow like a liquid. Plastic crystals are wax-like with long-range order in their molecular arrangement, but disorder in the orientation of each molecule. The orientational disorder makes plastic crystals highly deformable, and as they change shape, the droplets change shape along with them.

This plastic crystal phase seems to be what’s causing the droplets to change shape, or break their symmetry. And in order to understand morphogenesis, it’s vital that we understand what causes symmetry breaking.

These insights could eventually help scientists and engineers create artificial structures with the same kind of control and complexity as biological systems. Novel and complex structures could be built from simple components, with potential applications in drug development, paints, cosmetics, and household products like shampoo.

“It’s curious to observe such life-like behaviour in a non-living thing — in many cases, artificial objects can look more ‘alive’ than living ones,” said Smoukov.

Read the entire study at Nature: “Self-shaping of oil droplets via the formation of intermediate rotator phases upon cooling”.

[ Cambridge University | Chemistry World ]


Email the author at george@gizmodo.com and follow him at @dvorsky. Top image by University of Cambridge


No, Disney Infinity Is Not Spoiling Star Wars Episode VIII Secrets

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No, Disney Infinity Is Not Spoiling Star Wars Episode VIII Secrets

Yesterday saw some Star Wars excitement as a video circulated suggesting one of The Force Awakens’ biggest unanswered questions was actually answered in Disney Infinity’s movie play set. Nah. Didn’t happen.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE FORCE AWAKENS FOLLOW. SEE THE MOVIE ALREADY SO I CAN STOP HITTING CAPS LOCK.

Here’s a clip (via YouTube’s Frank Furtado) from the video that started this whole mess. Once you hit play, there’s no escaping spoiler territory.

This is a clip from a video of one of Disney Infinity The Force Awakens’ final battles. It was originally posted to YouTube by Angry Joe, who at first heard what you may have heard—”Face me, Cousin!” Fans have been speculating about the lineage of the Force-sensitive female lead Rey since was introduced in early trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Since we learn in the movie that Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, Ren calling Rey “cousin” would make her Luke Skywalker’s daughter!

Only he doesn’t call her “cousin.” As Angry Joe later realized, hence the removal of his video, is that what Kylo Ren is saying is “Face me!”, which is quickly interrupted by “Curses!” when he suffers damage.

Case closed! We can all go home—oh wait, Twitter is still talking about it. Sites have posted about it. People wanting to believe the Disney Infinity folks could be so boneheaded are saying that no, he definitely says “cousin” and that “Face me, curses!” makes no sense.

I won’t post their tweets, because I don’t want their misguided little faces to be all sad.

Okay, just one or two. I’ll be discreet.

Some people just hear it, which happens.

No, Disney Infinity Is Not Spoiling Star Wars Episode VIII Secrets

Some reject the idea of “curses” completely.

No, Disney Infinity Is Not Spoiling Star Wars Episode VIII Secrets

And some people are just making shit up.

No, Disney Infinity Is Not Spoiling Star Wars Episode VIII Secrets

I’ve been reading them all day and getting frustrated. Frustrated enough to capture footage and make a short video on my day off.

That should clear everything up. Or suddenly have people thinking every character capable of being used in the play set is Kylo Ren’s cousin. Share it with your friends. I’m going to go have a Christmas now!

To contact the author of this post write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter@bunnyspatial.

RIP George Clayton Johnson, The Man Who Started Star Trek On Its Epic Voyage

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RIP George Clayton Johnson, The Man Who Started Star Trek On Its Epic Voyage

Yesterday, science fiction author and screenwriter George Clayton Johnson passed away at the age of 86. He’s best known for novels such as Logan’s Run and shows such as The Twilight Zone and Star Trek.

Johnson was born in 1929 in Wyoming, and served in the United States Army for a short while, eventually using the GI Bill to attend college. He worked as a draftsman, and took up writing. His first story, ‘I’ll Take Care Of You’ appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1959, and he began placing stories in other well-known publications such as Playboy, The Twilight Zone Magazine, Rogue, and others.

RIP George Clayton Johnson, The Man Who Started Star Trek On Its Epic Voyage

Along with Jack Golden Russell, Johnson co-authored the treatment for the film Ocean’s 11, and began working in the film industry. Eventually meeting Rod Sterling, he sold several stories to the showrunner, and began writing scripts for The Twilight Zone. His works became the basis for such episodes as The Four Of Us Are Dying and A Penny for Your Thoughts.

RIP George Clayton Johnson, The Man Who Started Star Trek On Its Epic Voyage

Johnson’s most famous contribution to television came on September 8th, 1966 when the first episode of Star Trek, The Man Trap, aired on CBS. Johnson had joined the staff of the show to write an episode about the Enterprise crew visiting a 1920s style planet, and had been recommended to the production staff by one of the show’s producers. Another screenwriter, Lee Erwin had been assigned the storyline that would eventually become the basis for the episode, but when Gene Roddenberry wasn’t thrilled with the episode Johnson was working on, he gave him the episode. The episode would be his only contribution to the show.

Following Star Trek, Johnson and William F. Nolan worked together to produce Logan’s Run, a dystopian science fiction novel about a society that killed anyone who turns 21 years old. The novel was later made into a movie directed by Michael Anderson, and eventually won a pair of Academy Awards.

In his later years, he continued to write, videotaping his own youtube channel and was heavily involved in the convention and writing circuit. He remained politically engaged, becoming an advocate for the legalization of marijuana.

Johnson died due to complications from cancer, and is survived by Lola Johnson, a daughter, Judy Olive, a son, Paul B. Johnson and a half-sister.

Image credit: Startrek.com

[Variety]

Gaze Deeply Into the Eyes of This Soul-Eating Owl 

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Gaze Deeply Into the Eyes of This Soul-Eating Owl 

Owls are a popular trope in the mythologies of many cultures, some of which believed that these nocturnal creatures were harbingers of impending death, with a mission to collect wayward souls. But don’t worry: we have it on the highest authority that this screech owl will not consume the very essence of your being.

Screech owls live throughout the United States, although they’re so fantastic at camouflage you’re unlikely to ever see them. Instead, they tuck away in the nooks and crannies of trees. However, a representative of the Department of the Interior offers the slightly-unnerving, “But remember, even if you can’t see them, they can see you.” If that’s not bad enough, they continue:

Screech owls are opportunistic predators. They eat whatever they can easily catch: mice, rats, birds, reptiles, insects, amphibians and fish. But we’re pretty sure human souls aren’t on the menu.

So don’t worry about it. Your immortal afterlife is totally safe. Really.

Top image: Screech owl. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Ed Steenstra


Contact the author at mika.mckinnon@io9.com or follow her at @MikaMcKinnon.

Radiohead Recorded The Original Theme Song For The Lateset James Bond Film, Specre

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Radiohead Recorded The Original Theme Song For The Lateset James Bond Film, Specre

This is ... unexpected. Radiohead had been asked to write the theme song for the latest James Bond film, Specre. According to the band, it didn’t work out, but they recorded it anyway, and released it to the web.

The band released the song to SoundCloud yesterday, and it’s a gorgeous song, something that feels perfectly at home with some of the other Bond songs out there.

Here’s what they had to say about it:

Last year we were asked to write a theme tune for the Bond movie Spectre.

Yes we were. It didn’t work out, but became something of our own, which we love very much.

As the year closes we thought you might like to hear it.

Merry Christmas. May the force be with you.

There’s no indication as to why it didn’t work out, but it’s a cool thing to hear, even if it didn’t make the final movie.

Radiohead Recorded The Original Theme Song For The Lateset James Bond Film, Specre

For the record, I have to say I like Radiohead’s version quite a bit more than I like the song that ended up as the official track, Writing’s On The Wall, by Sam Smith:

Which did you like better?

Image credit: AP Images

[H/T to Clifford Kumar Perianayagam]

These Guys Swing Lightsabers Around Like They're Using The Force

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These Guys Swing Lightsabers Around Like They're Using The Force

It’s just a teensy bit goofy to be swinging lightsabers around in the forest dressed as Jedi and Sith but it’s also a helluva lot of fun because these guys are so good at handling the lightsabers that you could totally convince me that they’ve managed to tap into The Force in real life. The video, filmed by Kuma Films, shows David Barron and Daniel Musashi performing their contact sword skills that looks like it comes from a galaxy far, far away.

I’m pretty sure they could pull off the same tricks with a real lightsaber too and only lose a few arm hairs.


SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Check Out The First Creepy Teaser For Orphan Black's Fourth Season

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The next season of Orphan Black drops in April 2016, but BBC America has just released the first, super creepy teaser for it.

There’s not much there, but it certainly does set the tone, doesn’t it?

[BBC America]

What an Earthrise Looks Like from the Surface of the Moon

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What an Earthrise Looks Like from the Surface of the Moon

Wow. A million wows, really. Here’s a truly spectacular image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that shows Earth in all its glory from the perspective of being on the surface of the Moon. It’s an Earthrise and it’s just gorgeous and amazing to be able to “see” it. The image was “composed from a series of images taken Oct. 12, when LRO was about 83 miles above the moon’s farside crater Compton.”

According to NASA, the LRO actually experiences 12 earthrises every day but it’s so busy doing other things it doesn’t get a chance to enjoy the view of the earthrise. NASA writes:

In this composite image we see Earth appear to rise over the lunar horizon from the viewpoint of the spacecraft, with the center of the Earth just off the coast of Liberia (at 4.04 degrees North, 12.44 degrees West). The large tan area in the upper right is the Sahara Desert, and just beyond is Saudi Arabia. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America are visible to the left. On the moon, we get a glimpse of the crater Compton, which is located just beyond the eastern limb of the moon, on the lunar farside.

...

Capturing an image of the Earth and moon with LRO’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) instrument is a complicated task. First the spacecraft must be rolled to the side (in this case 67 degrees), then the spacecraft slews with the direction of travel to maximize the width of the lunar horizon in LROC’s Narrow Angle Camera image. All this takes place while LRO is traveling faster than 3,580 miles per hour (over 1,600 meters per second) relative to the lunar surface below the spacecraft!


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Go To Mars With These Fantastic Scenes From Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars

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Go To Mars With These Fantastic Scenes From Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars

Artist Travis Smith is a big fan of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, and inspired by the recent news that there will be a television show, he went and illustrated several scenes from the first novel, Red Mars.

Here’s how the images came about:

Last year when news first broke that Spike TV was considering adapting Red Mars I created these illustrations based on scenes from the book. These images had been in my mind for a long time but the announcement gave me a final push to get something out there. I am planning more illustrations in the future, covering Red Mars and other books in the trilogy.

Go To Mars With These Fantastic Scenes From Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars

Boone arriving in Burroughs - From ‘Falling into History’, John Boone visits Burroughs in order to meet UN bureaucrat Helmut Bronski. He is wearing a garment mentioned in the books (not specifically worn by Boone, but implied), a jacket made from a reflective copper-foil looking material that affords some radiation protection.

Go To Mars With These Fantastic Scenes From Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars

Nadia in Underhill - The early days of construction in ‘The Crucible’. Here Nadia is listening to Louis Armstrong amidst the chaos of construction. Her character is reserved, so I imagined this movement as almost subconscious, her character is experiencing one of the happiest moments of her life.

Go To Mars With These Fantastic Scenes From Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars

Maya on the Ares - From the chapter, ‘The Voyage Out’, an emotional moment in the Ares’ bubble dome. Here for Maya is reflecting on her goal and everything that she has done to achieve it.

Go To Mars With These Fantastic Scenes From Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars

Chalmers on the Escarpment - Chalmers broods following the murder of his friend and rival Boone in the chapter ‘Guns Under the Table’. He has joined Zyek’s mining co-op, caught in a storm, he is on his own out on the Great Escarpment.

Image credits: Travis Smith

Will Barnes And Noble Save Itself By Selling Alcohol?

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Will Barnes And Noble Save Itself By Selling Alcohol?

Barnes and Noble hasn’t been doing so hot this year. The book retailer has struggled in the face of stiff competition and recently began looking into getting liquor licenses for a location in New York: will this save the chain?

Disclaimer: I also write for Barnes and Noble’s Science Fiction and Fantasy blog.

Probably not, but it’s a shift that the retailer should look into as a way to get people coming back to its locations. Goodereader noted that the company has applied for a permit for their location in New Hartford, New York:

Keven Danow, a New York City-based attorney who consulted with Barnes & Noble on the license application said that select locations will try-out selling beer and wine from the stores cafes to see how customers like the concept. It is very likely that food menu offerings would be tweaked to offer items better paired with beer or wine.

Barnes and Noble is starting to do what a number of smaller booksellers have long realized: it’s not just a destination to get a book off the bookshelf: bookstores are increasingly becoming event locations, sporting a wide range of author signings or other similar types of activities for book lovers.

Alcohol and books have been paired up before: there’s Books & Brews, a brewery and bookstore in Indianapolis, and certainly more than a couple book clubs with beer out there. Barnes and Noble already has some infrastructure set up in their 647 stores with their cafes: adding on beer and wine wouldn’t be a huge step for them.

This probably won’t be a silver bullet for the company, but it is a good, incremental move that could help stave off closure. Getting people in the door and engaging with authors and the shelves is a good step, but the company has deeper issues that they’ll have to solve: namely, by focusing more completely on books, rather than the other things that they’ve brought in to the store in the last decade. Borders, which closed several years ago, had similar issues: and as they struggled to find a way to make ends meet, they looked to things like games and toys, rather than the product that should have defined them.

It’ll be interesting to see what this experiment yields: maybe it’ll help them put together some fun events in the near future.

Image credit: MOLPIX / Shuttershock

[The GoodEReader]

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Target List From The Cold War Declassified For The First Time 

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U.S. Nuclear Weapons Target List From The Cold War Declassified For The First Time 

The National Security Archive has published what is said to be the most comprehensive and detailed list of nuclear weapons targets and applied weapons strategy that has ever been declassified. The report includes details plans for purposefully targeting civilian populations and military infrastructure for the systematic destruction of the Soviet Bloc.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/see-what-would...

It is called the Strategic Air Command Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959 and was penned in 1956. The 800-plus page study identifies more than 1,100 airfields tagged for destruction, all prioritized in order of their strategic value.

This makes sense as Russia’s main nuclear delivery system at the time was its growing bomber fleet. Just as well, a similar list of over 1,200 targeted population centers is part of the document, ranging from Berlin to Beijing, with top priorities placed on Moscow and Leningrad.

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Target List From The Cold War Declassified For The First Time 

The study goes on to outline proposed weapon strategies for different targets, including particular yields and detonation methods that would cause desired effects, one of which included enveloping the local population in as much fallout as possible. National Security Archive also notes that the report recommends developing a much more powerful bomb than anything in inventory at the time or today: a 60-megaton super-nuke, to be more exact. Keep in mind the most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested was Russia’s Tsar Bomb which was gauged at 50 megatons.

From the report:

Given the expansive definition of Air Power, this suggested that targets in major cities such as Moscow and Leningrad could be subjected to H-bomb attack because both were rich in air power targets. For example, according to the SAC study, the Moscow area had 12 airbases. None of them were even in the top 400 airbases on the list so they may not have been attacked immediately, but Moscow had other potentially higher priority targets: 7 Air Force storage areas, 1 Air Force military control, 1 government control (presumably Kremlin and vicinity), 4 guided missile entities (R&D, production), 5 atomic energy research centers, 11 airframe entities, 6 aircraft engine entities, 2 liquid fuel plants, and 16 liquid fuel storage areas, including refineries. Moreover Moscow had a variety of other non-air military objectives, such as an Army military headquarters, Army and Navy military storage areas, and biological warfare research centers that might have been deemed worthy of attack at the opening of the war.

Leningrad was also a prime candidate for high-yield nuclear weapons aimed at air power targets. It had 12 airbases in the vicinity, as well as such installations as: 1 air frame , 1 aircraft engine, 2 atomic energy research, 2 guided missiles, 3 liquid fuel, 1 Air Force military control, and 4 Air Force military storage areas.

The study also goes on to describe how surface-bursting high-yield nukes would be ideal compared to an air-bursting them, so that as much physical concussive damage is done and as much fallout is dispersed. Apparently the thermal effects and radiation were not quick enough as killers.

The National Security Archive has a great synopsis full of all kinds of eyebrow-raising details. Here’s the map of nuclear targets from their site:

In the end, it’s clear that this report was as much a manual of how to destroy mankind and the planet’s ability to support it, as it was a strategic study into how to execute World War III. Let’s look at that map and be thankful it never happened.


Contact the author at Tyler@jalopnik.com.

Top photo via wikicommons/public domain

Liu Cixin’s novel, The Three Body Problem earned the Hugo Award for Best Novel earlier this year.

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Liu Cixin’s novel, The Three Body Problem earned the Hugo Award for Best Novel earlier this year. It was a triumphant moment for Chinese SF, which has enjoyed its own incredible history over the 20th century. Over on the Barnes and Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog, I’ve looked at how the genre came to China.

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

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Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

It’s late December with just days to go until the clock strikes the new year, which makes it the perfect time for Kotaku’s various editors to list their favorite games of 2015. I’ll go first, for I have no fear.

Well, I have a little fear. If you’ve kept track of my lists from 2012, 2013 and 2014, you know my tastes are a bit eclectic. There’s generally something LEGO, some sort of MMO, a mobile game or two and at least one game starring a virtual Japanese singing sensation.

(Looks over his list)

Check, check, check and check. My oddness is actually quite predictable. Oh well. Here we go.


LEGO Dimensions

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

There are two things I enjoy doing more than nearly anything else—building LEGO things and playing video games. LEGO Dimensions is both of those things. It also encompasses my love of spending too much money on toys. It’s the total package. Well, once you buy all of it.

I’ve been a toys-meet-games enthusiast since the original Skylanders launched, but both that series and Disney Infinity were always lacking one important element to a good toy—playability. I love tiny colorful statues as much as the next eccentric beardo, but give me a toy I can pose and play with that also acts as a video game character, and I am in heaven.

Read my full LEGO Dimensions review here.


Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

Just when I thought I would never lose myself in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game again, along comes Final Fantasy XIV’s Heavensward expansion. Catching up on the story missions leading up to the expansion content finally gave me a chance to dive deep into the rejuvenated MMO, and I’ve been smitten ever since. The music, the story, the art—it really is one of the best Final Fantasy games—even our resident expert agrees.

And that’s before Heavensward was even released. It brought more stories, exciting new character professions (proud Machinist here), and some of the most gorgeous music the series has ever produced.

What I love the best about the game is how it continues to make the player the hero of the story. My character feels like one of the most important characters in the game, instead of just some random soldier. Maybe one day Back Front will make it into a Dissidia game.


Hatsune Miku Project Mirai DX

The 3DS needs more rhythm games. I know it has quite a few—Theatrhythm, Harmo Knight, that other one—but with its handy touch screen and double screens I should be swimming in virtual idols with giant heads. Thanks to the fine folks at Sega (sorry about calling you a shit farm back in 2007), for several months in 2015 I was.

Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX is an adorable game. Better yet, it’s an adorable game that will kick your ass at higher difficulty levels. I’ve watched videos of the game on super hard, because if I try to play it at that level myself I’ll have a heart attack.

Take away all of that stress and you’ve got a game I keep going back to again and again.

Check out my full review of Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX here.


IA/VT Colorful

Thank goodness for the region-free PlayStation Vita. In a year gleefully packed with rhythm games—the one above this one, Superbeat Xonic from the DJMax folks, a re-release of PaRappa the Rapper 2 and two band games—one perfect game didn’t make it stateside. Producer Kenichiro Takaki of Senran Kagura (boob ninja) infamy gave rhythm game fans a heads up that this gem, featuring popular Japanese vocaloid (computer singing dealio) IA, would not be making it to the U.S., urging everyone to import it. So I did, and I have no regrets.

IA/VT is challenging, feature-packed and the music is exquisite. Richard Eisenbeis called it one of the best Japan-only games of 2015. I call it one of the best games in my home of 2015.


Guitar Hero Live (TV)

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

Hahaha, the way the game reacts to you playing, with the band on stage getting increasingly more desperate. Priceless! Hilarious! Not the Guitar Hero Live that’s on my games of the year list though. The offline mode is fun while it lasts, but it doesn’t last long.

The bit I love is the Guitar Hero TV portion. That’s the bit where they’ve basically got music video stations running 24/7, only these are music videos you can play competitively online against other people. At any moment I can strap on my plastic guitar, hop into one of the regularly-updated channels and start playing along. If I’m in the mood for a particular song I can use some of the credits I’ve earned through online play to pick and choose, but it’s much more fun just to see what’s popping up next.

Guitar Hero TV has quickly become my favorite way to put the kids to sleep. Well done, FreeStyle Games. Now bring back DJ Hero.

Check out my full review of Guitar Hero Live here.


Transformers: Devastation

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

After years of games that got “close enough”, I finally got the classic Transformers game I always wanted. Platinum Games’ first stab at the series is pretty short and the gear management stuff is utter nonsense, but none of that matters when I am Optimus Prime or Bumblebee battling my way through the generic City to foil Megatron’s latest diabolical scheme. If Activision doesn’t let them do a follow-up then the Decepticons have already won.

Check out my full Transformers: Devastation review here.


Gems Of War

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

I know Gems of War actually came out in late 2014, but I only started playing it last month, so it totally counts, especially since I started playing it last month and haven’t stopped.

Every time I write about a new Puzzle Quest game I bemoan the loss of the original. I missed its ongoing storylines, the deep strategy, tons of special powers to activate to manipulate the board and destroy your enemies. The series isn’t what it used to be. Gems of War, developed by Puzzle Quest originator Infinite Interactive, is totally what Puzzle Quest used to be.

It is a free-to-play game for IOS, Android and Steam, but it’s not free-to-be-obnoxious about it. Players use gold earned in-game to unlock new kingdoms and storylines. Rather than a single character who unlocks new skills as he or she levels, the player gathers a horde of creatures, each with their own particular set of skills, organized into teams.

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

It’s not quite the same thing, but close enough to feel like what Puzzle Quest would have gradually evolved into had it not gone completely insane.

Just be warned—Gems of War is very hard to put down. While writing this I stopped to grab a screenshot and wound up playing for 30 minutes.


Ori And The Blind Forest

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

I didn’t play very much Ori and the Blind Forest, but this isn’t just a list of the favorite games I’ve played—it’s a list of my favorite games period. And while I didn’t control much of Moon Studios’ gorgeous action platformer, I watched it for hours and hours.

Ori makes the list because of my wife. For several months this year, Ori and the Blind Forest was her white whale. She was obsessed with completing the game, often to the detriment of herself and others. The children would shout “No Ori and the Blind Forest!” as she continued her endless attempts to navigate a massive flooding tree—the same one she had been throwing herself against the night before.

I’d never seen her so dedicated to a piece of interactive entertainment. She quit World of Warcraft after a half hour because she couldn’t catch a speedy dinosaur in one of the troll starter quests, yet here she was restarting again and again, never losing hope.

Eventually she finished the game, but only after finding every single power-up scattered throughout Ori’s world. Not a week has gone by since that she hasn’t asked me about the upcoming Definitive Edition. I definitely got my $20 worth out of this one.

Read our full review of Ori and the Blind Forest here.


Alto’s Adventure

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

Whenever I get too stressed out, Alto’s Adventure is there. Nothing calms and soothes me like developer Moon’s premium endless runner. A lone figure races down a mountainside, through cities and wooded forests and lonely hills. Beautiful music plays, lightning crackles across the sky as rain begins to fall. I don’t even have to play it—I close my eyes and it’s right there.

I can’t pick up my phone without my finger gravitating towards its icon. When the new Apple TV launched earlier this year I got to experience Alto on the big screen for the first time, and suddenly the major purchase didn’t feel quite so frivolous.

Check my write up of Alto’s Adventure here.


Fallout 4

Fahey's Top 10 Games Of 2015

See? I’m not a total weirdo.

I was not expecting to love Fallout 4 as much as I did. I was burnt out on open-world games. I had convinced myself I had no time for any of that nonsense, and what time I did have would be better spent on shorter, easier to put down and pick up titles. Fallout 4 proved me wrong.

For a couple of weeks in November, my every waking hour not spent working or watching my children (maybe some of the latter hours as well) was spent traversing the Boston wastelands, searching for secrets, battling mutants and trying to make Piper fall in love with my character.

Fallout 4 is the kind of game I hope holds up well enough to play it with my kids ten years from now, when they’re old enough to fully appreciate the post-apocalypse.

Read our full Fallout 4 review here.


So, how does my list compare to yours? If I’ve done these calculations correctly, it should be exactly the same. Mind you I am not good at calculations, so a few minor deviations are expected. Fingers crossed!

To contact the author of this post, write to fahey@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter at @bunnyspatial.

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