Ok, we took off a few days from my begging for a job writing on Stargate.  Time we get back to that I think.  I’m not sure what to write this time.  Another thing I’ve been thinking about is traveling to and from Destiny.  The issue has always power generation.  This is a topic explored all throughout the Stargate franchise.  One of my favorite characters has always been Jeannie Miller and only a little because I’ve always had a little bit of a crush on Kate Hewlett.  I imagine that Jeannie now, this much time later with her child grown and studying at university, Jeannie and her husband now live mostly on Atlantis, or at least splitting her time between Atlantis and the SGC.  Her greater focus has always been researching and practical implementation of new and prototype power generation.  So, of course, that’s been her work this whole time, or at least majoritively.  Over the years she helped advance the naquadah generator technology to the point where linking a dozen or so to the Atlantis gate, with some slightly more efficient internal power systems, can sustain a stable wormhole to Destiny for about 3.8 seconds.  Possibly long enough to send one person with considerable risk but we’ve worked out that we can well enough send through a couple crates of supplies in that time.  This touches on my earlier post about Destiny.  Accounting for refinement and production, this could allow for care package drops something like every seven to ten months or so.  All the same, Jeannie continues her research into Zero Point Module research.

     As I imagine all this, the ZPM research leads her almost directly to the original research programs for the Destiny’s power systems.  I like to think that Destiny’s power system drawing from stars is to start, a roundabout path to the Zero Point Energy solution.  It makes sense to me that Jeannie would find the older research documents while looking for the research we’re already familiar with.  What I’m thinking right now, over the season, with the information she’s found, she starts reverse engineering Destiny’s solar collectors so our newest ship the X-312 can start running some experiments.  I haven’t written up much yet on the newest Tau’ri spaceship but I imagine that by this time, we’ve started at least building a ship with a dedicated gate room.  We’ve seen this done on numerous Goa’uld ships, the Alkesh commandeered by The Trust, and oh yeah, Destiny.  It should be possible by this time with the advancement in naqudah generator technology to at least manage galactic gate travel.  Intergalactic gate travel, say from Milky Way to and from Pegasus may be pushing it still.  Ya know, until Jeannie figures out how to adapt stellar collection systems for the new ship…

     Anyway, this has been another installment of Tim begging to write for Stargate.  If anyone reading this has any way to put it this in front of Martin Gero so that I can talk him into giving me a job, I would really appreciate that!  Seriously, though, come on.  Just send him a link or something.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Pretty Please?

Yesterday I was thinking that it’s been awhile since I watched Alita: Battle Angel.  I’m pretty sure I wrote a review back when I first watched it in the theater.  If not, then what’s seven years late?

     If you haven’t watched it yet…what the hell?!  Seriously, it’s been like seven years!!!  First off, the entire film is extraordinarily beautiful.  The design of everything is not just true to the art of Yukito Kishiro’s original art style but manga and anime as a whole.  Much of the anime I’ve watched has been late eighties throughout nineties and this whole film looks like the truest love letter to that era of Japanese art.  For that alone I love this film.  There are so many scenes throughout where you can tell they’re panels straight out of the manga.  And then watching the bonus features James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez spoke specifically how they worked to honor the original work and recreating such iconic panels in live action.  They even invited Yukito Kishiro to visit the set and preview some of their work.  He gave his blessing for the project and even found himself on the verge of tears seeing his work translated into live action and done so by someone whose work he had enjoyed himself, particularly being a fan of Terminator for so many years.  It was really nice watching these interviews.

     I want to speak a moment on Rosa Salazar in this film.  Her performance is astounding!  To start, when Yukito Kishiro met her the first thing he said was that she looks exactly like Gally and she started to tear up a bit.  She was already a huge fan.  Much of this film, in particular Rosa’s work was Performance Capture.  For anyone not familiar, that’s the step beyond Motion Capture.  With this technology they record facial movement with the body movement.  They modeled Anita’s face on Rosa’s and every moment Alita is on screen that is precisely Rosa Salazar’s performance.  Yeah, there’s more than a few moments I teared up, shut your face!  It’s a compelling story to which I relate.  Again, she is an extraordinary performer!

     Now, I’ve never watched any of the Avatar movies.  Blue people not Last Airbender.  I’ve never had any interest but I’ve always appreciated the technological advancements made through the production that first Avatar movie.  Watching the bonus features for Alita: Battle Angel I learned just how important that first Avatar movie really is.  Turns out that if Avatar didn’t play out well we’d have never gotten Alita.  At one point James Cameron had to make a choice, finish writing Alita or move forward with Avatar.  He chose to stick with Avatar but then fortunately, he had a conversation with Robert Rodriguez.  Rodriguez was a fan of Alita and most impatiently waiting for Cameron to make it.  Asking him about it Cameron started to think about Rodriguez picking up the baton with Alita.  Lucky for us Rodriguez accepted and now we have this great film!

     One thing to always keep in mind, things always turn out the best when the people involved truly appreciate and love the work.  I can’t think of anything done that was done well when everyone involved hated what they were doing.

I’ve had a long couple of days so far this week.  All fun so far!  Last night I went to another film maker’s meet up  and then today I got to go to the taping for a special episode of Let’s Make a Deal! hosted by Wayne Brady.  I can’t say anything about the show itself until this episode airs and they haven’t a projected airdate yet as of filming this morning.  It was a special episode because through it we celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of Star Trek.  Star Trek was pretty big thing in house growing up.  Principally because of dad.  It was one of those things he grew up with and in turn, made sure it was ever omnipresent in our home.  Whenever there wasn’t a Lakers game on we were watching The Next Generation.  And then later on most Saturday nights, The Original Series was on.  I’ll admit, there was a time I claimed to like Star Wars more and in fact to not like Star Trek at all.  First, that was a dark time for fandoms when it was one or the other, NO IN BETWEEN!  I know better now.  And second, I was young child.  Not liking Star Trek was the greatest rebellious act I could muster.  There’s been hundreds of hours of material created by people more familiar with Star Trek than I who explain the cultural significance of Star Trek.  You should find their content.  I’ll just say briefly, that Star Trek inspired much of our modern technology.  In the sixties we saw Dr. “Bones” McCoy read a person’s vitals with a handheld device wirelessly connected to a small computer that would then take that data and nearly instantaneous diagnose and extrapolate a suitable treatment.  Now, we have the Apple Watch that can record a rudimentary echocardiogram and transmit that information to your doctor.  The Tricorder, despite being technology in a science fiction series still felt like magic in the way it could access most if not all established human knowledge.  And now our cell phones being constantly connected to the internet and quite literally putting the sum of human knowledge at our finger tips.  Granted far too many people are still too dumb to recognize these things because they’re told not to.  Alas, just in the time since Star Trek was created, the average human lifespan has increased by a minimum of ten years.  Just since the beginning of 2026 I’ve caught posts and articles of something like seven or eight people having birthdays between one-hundred and one-hundred and five.  Last December Dick Van Dyke turned one-hundred.  In just sixty years we advanced in particular, medicine roughly as much as the previous one-hundred years.  That may not seem like much until you consider THAT progress was roughly equivalent to possibly the three-hundred years before then.

I often rail against organized religion…pretty much every chance I get, however, my point remains valid.  Science fiction is among the greatest necessities of human existence.  Insomuch that it precedes science fact.  Meanwhile, the superstition of religion, as exemplified profoundly in recent years, serves only those whose bastardize it for personal gain.  And in turn, only functions to hold us back as a people.

     I look forward to a time when this people actually move forward instead of clinging to fairly tales.  The way things are going, it’s unlikely even I’ll live that long.

     At any rate, I need to get back to the job hunt now.  I’m just waiting for one more refund to arrive, I need to finally get my California License, and then I need to be starting at least one job this week.  So, until next time.  Have fun!

Whoops.  I intended to do this earlier but I had a job interview, donated plasma, and then had to take care of something I can’t talk about right now.  Anywho, I mentioned before that I was going to talk about how working in Stargate Universe to a new series.  If I were so fortunate to be involved with a new Stargate series.  And again, if anyone can point out my posts to Martin Gero, please do so.  All I need is an opportunity to talk him into hiring me so I can be a part of Stargate.

     Now, here’s what I’m thinking to tie in Universe with a new series.  To start, Destiny jumping to the next galaxy didn’t quite go according to plan.  As I imagine it, Eli managed to fix the stasis pod in time.  However he’s woken up early per a new protocol he programmed that would revive him when a viable star enters sensor range.  This protocol works perfectly except it happened just nine or ten months in.  A rogue star born on the very edge of a fledgling galaxy and flung into the void barely grasped by the galaxy’s gravity.  Now awake again, Eli manages to steer Destiny into this star and having a considerable boost of power, he programs some orders into the repair robots and sets them about their work.  He takes some time to check in with Homeworld Security and working with MacKay they set up some plans for regular check-ins, and with recent developments in the advancement and progress of the naqudah generators, they manage to open wormholes from Atlantis to Destiny, sustaining a stable wormhole for 3.8 seconds using a dozen MK. 15 generators and effectively burning them out in the process.  This is not long enough to deploy fresh personnel but they do work up a process of sending through a care package.  Some supplies like food and water, newer tablets with accessible portions of the Ancient database, and possibly a generator or two.

     Eli goes in and out of stasis over time.  Researching whenever he has a moment, repairing what he can, working out.  If you haven’t seen David Blue lately that last bit will make more sense later.  As the robots repair things the overall condition of the ship improves and gradually the power issues become more manageable.  But by that time it’s been closer to fifteen years.

     The stasis pods on Destiny are at best first generation.  More likely they’re prototype in production.  Bètatest in a sense.  While life function is sustained, the whole aging problem isn’t entirely worked out.  Anyone comes back for this part of the story simply aged somewhat.  Anyone who doesn’t come want to come back, their characters are either locked in their stasis pods or their pods malfunctioned in one way or another and their lost.  Again, very old technology and such flaws were anticipated.

      I would write this as an episode later in the season to answer the obvious questions that arise from viewers seeing an established plan and process for communicating and supporting Destiny.  All of that introduced in the end of the first episode when MacKay transmits a care package to Destiny.  We then cut to Destiny in homage to the pilot episode of Universe with the gate spinning toward activation.  Then Eli is revived and when he goes to the gate room we see an apparatus set up by Eli to catch travelers and cargo coming through the gate, as he walks into the room to look over the fresh supplies and that’s when we reveal the new Eli.  He reads a note from MacKay and it’s time for him to get to work.

     Yeah, that’s how I envision, and only I envision it seeing as I’m not involved with any Stargate projects as it is.  Again, if anyone can put me in touch with Martin Gero, maybe we can make this a reality.

I was watching Suddenly Susan last night/this morning, however it is you perceive time.  And often times I gravitate to David Strickland’s performance.  He was always very funny.  Even his few appearances on Mad About You where he played a strait-laced bureaucrat tool.  He managed to find little things in that character that the character wouldn’t find funny but everyone else does.  On Suddenly Susan, his character of Todd Stites was a kind of ditzy naïveté.  He always found the funniest thing possible for Todd to do.  I can only imagine the outtakes and gag reels we never got to see on TV.  I never knew him personally, nor do I have any contact with anyone who knew him and I understand it’s very possible he wasn’t great company off-screen.  But his personal issues aside, the season three finale of Suddenly Susan suggests to me that he’s one of those people that everyone loved to be around.  It’s one of those pieces of television that always gets me weeping like a baby.  When I was a child I was always drawn to him whenever I would watch this show not knowing just much I relate to him.  Not unlike my affinity for Robin Williams.  Both men had tragic and devastating monsters following them through everything they did, and yet, they responded by everyone around them laugh.  When he died, I heard one person in particular mentioned how you could look at any photo of Robin and no matter how grande his smile his eyes always looked sad.  That hit right me right in my duodenum.  I was already weepy before I started this and needed a funny sounding anatomy word.  David Strickland was very much the same, in my observation.  I guess I always responded to this being someone who at a very young age, also had to learn to fake a smile.  Being an abused child in the nineties, especially growing up in a christian church, you don’t really get to be open about things without someone calling a hotline.  So, we had to fake a smile until we could get away for awhile.  So, I related to this and it seems I gravitated to people who we know now in retrospect, were going through things like I was.

I just wanted to put this out there because since I was a child I’ve been a fan of his and it turns out not just because Todd was a goofy clown chimping about.  He was going through some things leading up to his death, and anyone who knows me knows that there are some choices that I don’t judge like everyone else does.  And I have perspective on such matters that most don’t.  But I am sad that we didn’t get to enjoy more of his work.  Ultimately, we just have to accept that he’s better off now and that we need to make each other laugh.  The little I know of him, I’m pretty confident that he would at least agree with that last point.

This wound up being more than I anticipated so, no Stargate talk this time.  Probably tomorrow.