Musings in the Mother Ship

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In the alien spaceship approaching the mothership:

David:  Head straight for it.

Steve:  What the hell?

David:  Don’t touch them.  Don’t, don’t, don’t!  I was counting on this.  They are bringing us in.

Steve:  When the hell was you gonna tell me?

David:  Oops.

Steve:  We’ve got to work on our communication.

Seeing the troops inside the mother ship

David:  Oh, my God!  Look at that!  There must be thousands of them.

Steve:  Millions of them. What the hell are they doing?

David:  Looks like they’re preparing an invasion.

The ship docks with the alien command center and David attempts to upload his virus into the alien control system.

David:  (CLAPS)  We’re in.  (SIGHS)  Do it. Do it. Do it.

Back on Earth:

General:  Sir, he’s uploading the virus.  Eagle One, the package is being delivered.  Stand by!

In the Alien spaceship:

David:  Oh yeah, oh yeah! One more step.

Suddenly the screen flashes a message in the alien text.  David pushes several keys and the message resolves into English, “INPUT PASSWORD.”  David lets out a strangled scream and says:

David:  Steve we’re cooked.  I have no idea what to enter.

Steve:  Just write password in lower case.

David:  That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.  We know nothing of their language or software rules.

Steve:  Yeah, well then how the hell were you able to write a virus that would work in their system?

David:  Well, that’s a good point.  Let’s see, p a s s w o r d.  Good heavens it worked!

Steve:  Of course it worked.  There’s only twenty minutes left in the movie.  We have a few threats left like the ship docking lock that won’t release and then the pursuit by the three alien interceptor craft and finally the debris field created by the nuclear explosion in the mother ship and then we’ll be home free to the heroes’ welcome where the pretty girls jump into our arms and kiss us.

David:  Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.  Tell me does Randy Quaid manage to earn the respect of his stepson by saving the day during the fight against the alien ship back on Earth.

Steve:  Yes, but he dies sacrificing his life to destroy the ship by crashing into the alien ship’s primary weapon.

David:  Well, that’s probably for the better.  He was a very silly and annoying character.  After all, if he really had been abducted by the aliens why would he still be alive?

Steve:  Good point.  Do you think we’ll get to be in the sequel in twenty years?

David:  Well, I will be.  By then I’ll be looking for an easy paycheck to retire on but you’ll be a much bigger star and won’t want your name associated with the kind of cheesy project that a sequel to this goofy movie will likely be.

Steve:  Yeah, I think you’re right.  I’ll probably concentrate on high end projects directed by Steven Spielberg.  Of course, I’ll leave space for the occasional sequel to “Bad Boys.”  You shouldn’t forget what got you to the dance.

David:  Yeah, I’m hoping to make at least one more sequel to “The Fly” one of these days.

Steve:  Oy!

Me Robot

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When I received the call from RoboDriver I had been lamenting the fact that I hadn’t received an offer for a date in seven years.  That’s why I prefer robots.  They’re a cleaner breed.  They never have dandruff.

I arrived at the plant where the incident had occurred.  This was the only manufacturing site for the Higgs bosonic brain.  Of course there was a reason for this.  The instability of this boson was so extreme that the robots were constantly in a state of nervous exhaustion and frequently flew into a rage and killed everyone around them.  As you might imagine this was seriously cutting into profits.

I entered the office of the CEO of RoboDriver and he said, “Thank you for your swift response, ma’am.”  I retorted, “I prefer to be addressed as Dr. Daystrom.  She/her.”  He replied, “Alright Dr. Daystrom-she-her.  We need to troubleshoot exactly why one of our robots went on a killing spree in downtown San Francisco today and come up with an action plan to solve the problem and convince our customers to use RoboDriver for all their driving needs.”

Gritting my teeth over his insulting greeting I said I would begin a thorough forensic investigation that would include interviews with all of the witnesses, review of all of the technical documents for the manufacturing and quality assurance records, a comprehensive search of all similar problems over the last twenty years and an electron microscopy examination of the Higgs bosonic brain of the killer robot.  He asked, “How long will that take?”  I answered, “About forty minutes.”  He was taken aback, “How could you possibly complete such an investigation in forty minutes?”

I replied, “Because there’s no need to do any of that.  Everybody knows that the Higgs bosonic brain has a 100% failure rate within one week of installation and of the 1,343 cases of robot committed homicides, 100% of them were robots possessing a Higgs bosonic brain.”  He said, “Oh.  Well, you have a point there.”  I followed up, “But you know that already.  Why does RoboDriver continue to use the Higgs bosonic brain when the US Robotics positronic brain has a stellar record of safety and longevity?  US Robotics licenses their technology and has a good reputation for working hand in glove with their partners.”

The CEO got up from his desk and shut the door to his office and walked over to my chair, cleared his throat and said in hushed tones, “The fact of the matter is we were the victims of a hostile takeover by a venture capital group that installed a cost-cutting program that identified the fact that licensing Higgs bosonic brains instead of the positronic equivalent would save seventeen cents for each robot equipped.  Now after the fact, this savings seems to pale in comparison to the 1,343 wrongful death suits and the Justice Department’s grand jury indictments but all of that stuff won’t hit the fan until after Christmas so what we need is a band-aid to keep this under control until the December bonuses get handed out.  So, what can you do?”

I looked down at the floor and shuddered and told him I’d see what I could do.  I headed out onto the programming floor and using the clearance card I had been given by the CEO began writing some new code for the RoboDriver robots.  I loaded the code onto a server and began the download to the entire robot fleet.  I headed for the front door just as the first wave of murder-bots stormed the C-suite.  Well, so much for their bonuses.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 11DEC2025 – Great Science Fiction Redux

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I think the only way to answer this is to look at some stories that have held my attention. I’m going to look at each in 4 particulars Plot, Characters, and Science, why it holds my attention. These are of course my own (potentially assinine opinions) and I apologize in advance if you find your ox has been gored

I Robot by Isaac Asimov
Plot: This doesn’t really have an overall plot per se, but one in each story. This is unsurprising as it a bunch of shorts tied together. Each story is itself is essentially a mystery and I find their resolutions in general quite Satisfactory (but the final story that I have never enjoyed)
Character: Honestly the human characters are cardboard. Susan Calvin feels like a classic scientist character in drag. Donovan and Powell who show up in several are more foils for the story line. The real characters here are the robots like Robbie and figuring them out is the whole point of each story.
Science: The Robot positronic brains are sheer handwavium. Some of the resolutions do involve some actual science. That said the positronic brains are VERY self consistent and that adds to a feeling of reality.
Why I Like It: the pleasure of it really comes from how the puzzles are solved. These are almost more Mystery than SciFi at some level

A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter L Miller
Plot: There are essentially 3 sections spread out over a period of several thousand years. Each section has an internal plot. All three sections ultimately lead to the final resolution of the plot
Character: Each section has one main character. These are well rounded (though ALL male as they are Monks or abbots of the Monastery for St. Liebowitz). Given their time scale they exist ONLY in their section, although their actions (and to some degree personalities) affect the later sections of the story
Science: This is a post nuclear war book. The effects of the radiation are wrong, though they would not necessarily have been thought unreasonable when these stories were written in the 1950s. Other science (as society recovers) makes sense though is not directly influencing the plot
Why I Like It: The story arcs are fascinating with the overall arch being rather disturbing. Mr. Millers prose is downright luminous in places and his plotting and bits of humor (winking at everyday things we understand but the characters don’t) helps offset the sombre tone of the overall arch of the story. Even though this is three separate stories the work to tie them together is elegant. This well deserved the 1961 Hugo when the Hugo meant something

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Plot: This is a time travel story where an apparent time paradox must be resolved or history as we know it may just disappear. It is also a closed room Mystery AND a bit of a romance all at once with most of the action occurring in the late Victorian Age. And it successfully wraps up ALL these pieces and (mostly) sets the time stream back to its proper state. This is a tour de force of plotting
Character: Our two main characters (Ned Henry and Verity Kindle) are very well fleshed out. The secondary players also have decent motivations though are though sometimes intentional stereotypes (e.g. a totally distractible Oxford Don)
Science: It has time travel, which in all honesty, appears to be more in the realm of fantasy than SciFI (even though it has been a staple since H.G. Wells The Time Machine). That said the rest of its science mostly makes sense, and other than one critical biology issuethe science is not critical to the plot. The time travel is self consistent (although we are in the process of learning about it in detail) but we don’t get David Weber like info dumps but learn the about the Time travel as we go along.
Why I Like It: This is just an absolute romp. You are swept along by the mystery and by trying to resolve the change in the time stream that is introduced. As I said the plotting is genius level, the mystery is very like a good Poirot story. There are little details you may miss in the first reading that on second reading you wonder how you missed it. Again a worthy Hugo award winner

That’s probably more than anyone wants to read. Looking at it (and other stories I return to time and again) I am mostly attracted by good plotting. I admire additional character work and language. I am willing to suspend disbelief if the “science” is self consistent. I will tolerate massive violations of reality such as time travel, matter transports (looking at YOU Star Trek) and other massive violations of basic science. I’d love to see other people look at their favorites in a similar light

The Blabbnoy Effect

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The Galactic Corps had relentlessly pursued the evil anti-civilizational organization of Carpone from one end of the Milky Way to the other.  They had methodically identified and rooted out each level of Carpone until they had finally located the heart of the organization.  This galaxy spanning criminal conspiracy was headquartered on a planet called Sflprugm.  Sflprugm was as hard to approach as it was to pronounce.  All the space within a two-parsec radius had been planted with detection devices meant to alert Sflprugmians of any approaching danger.  Only the Corps’ ultra-advanced spy rays had allowed them to study Sflprugm from a safe distance and so size up the enemy.  And they were a worthy opponent.  The defensive screens that protected Sflprugm were beyond impregnable.  No imaginable fleet of battle cruisers could hope to breach the screens.  And the Sflprugmian fleet was as large as and as deadly as the Corps’ own.

To solve the problem of conquering the Sflprugmians the Corps turned to the greatest living scientist of the age Dr. Balbus Blabbnoy.  His work on trans-dimensional ballistics was required reading at the Academy.  He was tasked with calculating the trajectory of an anti-matter planet from the Psi-Gamma dimension and forcing it into our universe with just the correct entrance and momentum needed to collide with Sflprugm.  It was assumed that much of their fleet would be destroyed with their planet.  But the Corps’ fleet would be assembled to mop up the remnants.

Admiral Bowser planned out the exact coordinates for the fleet’s convergence.  It would appear out of hyperspace about five billion miles from Sflprugm; safely beyond the radius of destruction but close enough to pursue the remaining vessels.

Dr Blabbnoy would be on the bridge of Admiral Bowser’s flagship; The Superponderous and when zero hour arrived, he would throw the switch which would trigger a sub-ether wave that would activate a device in Psi-Gamma that would cause a sub-atomic generator to generate a worm hole that would translate the anti-matter planet into our space-time with devastating results for Sflprugm.

Balbus was on the bridge and Admiral Bowser noticed how extremely tired the scientist was.  He was mumbling something under his breath that the Admiral thought sounded like, “Was it X15 or X-15?  Now the Admiral had never gotten past high school algebra but even to his non-mathematical ears this didn’t sound promising.

When the clock ticked down to zero Dr. Blabbnoy screamed, “X15!“ and slammed the button.  For a few seconds nothing seemed to be happening.  The sub-space screens failed to show any irruption in the space near Sflprugm.  But while the navy was watching their screens Dr. Blabbnoy was looking out the front window of the ship and that was where he saw the irruption.  The missing anti-matter planet was about five hundred miles from the flagship and heading toward it and the rest of the fleet with about twenty seconds before impact.  All he could think to say was, “X-15!“

Suffice it to say that this was not the finest hour for the Corps or human civilization or even computational science.  But it was one of those examples from history of exactly the danger in not checking your work.  Or even more importantly having someone else check your work.  But most certainly it taught us to never trust anyone with a name as ridiculous as Balbus Blabbnoy with almost limitless power.  How could it not be a disaster?