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Jun. 2nd, 2018 12:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* "Denmark passes law banning burqa and niqab:" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/31/denmark-passes-law-banning-burqa-and-niqab
* "Fresh clashes in Nicaragua leave 15 dead:" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44328052
* "Rajoy is gone. Can Pedro Sánchez tackle the corruption plaguing Spain?:" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/01/rajoy-pedro-sanchez-corruption-spain-scandal
* "In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything:" https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html#click=https://t.co/vUrH86nNeg
"“Austerity isn’t a necessity,” he continued. “It’s a political choice, to move Britain in a different way. I can’t see a rationale beyond further enriching the rich while making the lives of the poor more miserable.”"
* "Volunteers 'shouldered Grenfell fallout':" https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-44295397
* "How Sweden is preparing for Russia to hack its election:" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44070469
* "Trudeau declines to meet Trump because of US precondition:" http://www.tampabay.com/trudeau-declines-to-meet-trump-because-of-us-precondition-ap_world75093ce4b0544576ad7fd9a7e9d76392
* So not only did 45 decide to attack our manufacturing sector including Harley Davidson with a dramatic increase in the cost of materials, but he is hitting them going the other way by attacking our allies for funsies, thus causing them to hit them with big tariffs when they try to export. Why does 45 hate Harley Davidson so much? He knew this was going to happen. People have been saying this was going to happen for months. "EU opens WTO case against Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs:" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/01/eu-starts-retaliation-against-donald-trumps-steel-and-aluminium-tariffs
* "Trump's tariffs on US allies will shrink the savings Americans gained from tax cuts:" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/trump-tariffs-will-shrink-savings-americans-gained-from-tax-cuts.html
* "Here’s the Email Russian Hackers Used to Try to Break Into State Voting Systems:" https://theintercept.com/2018/06/01/election-hacking-voting-systems-email/
* "New internet accounts are Russian ops designed to sway U.S. voters, experts say:" http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article212299529.html
* "The US government discovered evidence of high-tech cell phone spying devices being used near the White House:" http://www.businessinsider.com/high-tech-phone-spying-devices-may-have-been-used-near-white-house-2018-6?r=UK&IR=T
* "D’Souza after pardon: Trump wants me to be ‘a bigger voice than ever’:" http://thehill.com/homenews/media/390207-dsouza-after-pardon-trump-wants-me-to-be-a-bigger-voice-than-ever
* "Jared Kushner’s Close Friend Rick Gerson Under Scrutiny From Mueller Team:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/jared-kushners-close-friend-rick-gerson-under-scrutiny-from-mueller-team
* Price of the Mueller Investigation? About $16.7 million
Price of Security for 45's weekly long weekends to Mar-a-Lago? $17 million.
* The Sinclair Propaganda channels are Spinning the Pruitt scandal. "Pruitt tells pro-Trump Sinclair Broadcasting he cares ‘so much’ about taxpayer money:" https://thinkprogress.org/pruitt-appears-on-pro-trump-sinclair-tv-818e838647fa/
* They refuse to put money into real clean energy because they "don't think the government should pick winners and losers," but they want to prop up the coal industry with government funds. "Trump administration preparing 2-year coal, nuke bailout:" http://scipol.duke.edu/content/trump-administration-preparing-2-year-coal-nuke-bailout
* This is terrifying. "John Bolton's latest staff pick has spread unfounded anti-Muslim, anti-Iran claims:" http://www.newsweek.com/john-bolton-muslim-iran-fleitz-950104
* Your tax dollars at work. "EPA Spent $1,560 on 12 Silver Fountain Pens:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/epa-spent-dollar1560-for-a-dozen-silver-fountain-pens
* "Hate on the Ballot: At Least 8 White Nationalists in Races Across US:" https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/politics/Hate-on-the-Ballot-At-Least-8-White-Nationalists-in-Races-Across-US-484270591.html
* TW: Pedophilia, Rape, Domestic Violence, Gynocide and assorted horrifying misogyny. Seriously, this man is terrifying. "Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He’s A Pedophile:" https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nathan-larson-congressional-candidate-pedophile_us_5b10916de4b0d5e89e1e4824
* The pardons seem reasonable, but I have a host of concerns about most of the rest of it. "Greitens signs bills, issues pardons before leaving office:" http://www.newstribune.com/news/missouri/story/2018/jun/01/greitens-signing-bills-leaving-office/728704/
* So the Republican argument is that the Republican decision to freeze Puerto Rico in a second class state so that vulture capitalists can dismantle it, and the Republican decision to refuse Puerto Rico the same quality of disaster relief that Texas and Florida got and make them take loans instead of getting desperately needed funding even though the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens because Republicans are racist has all been somehow a secret plot by the Democrats to get Republicans to render Puerto Rico nearly unlivable so that people have to move en masse to other states where their votes count and that therefore the citizen rights of Puerto Ricans need to be revoked to render it illegal for them to vote in the states where they live. How Democrats, while begging and pleading with Republicans to do the decent thing, are somehow forcing Republicans to be so greedy and racist that their cruelty is still killing people on Puerto Rico is not explained. Republicans, your racism is showing. "Candidate says displaced Puerto Ricans shouldn't be able to vote in Florida:" https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/22/politics/florida-republican-candidate-puerto-ricans-voting-registration/index.html
* "What the legal process looks like for an immigrant child taken away from his parents:" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/27/what-the-legal-process-looks-like-for-an-immigrant-child-taken-away-from-his-parents/
* TW: Rape. "Corrective Rape- A South African Speaks :" https://vaspider.tumblr.com/post/174392440381/corrective-rape-a-south-african-speaks
* I just want to remind people that we are all stronger together and we need each other. If you are trying to kick trans people (of any sexual orientation) out of Pride and out of the movement? You are wrong. Transfolk of colour started the Stonewall Riot. Transfolk of colour started Pride. Transfolk of colour have bled and died for the movement and we wouldn't be where we are without transfolk and bifolk and the Ace folk who were always a part of the movement. Yes separatists/TERFs periodically try to to steal the movement away from the rest of us and to miseducate each generation of our youth. Yes, people periodically try to white wash our history, or erase whole segments of us, or force us into neat little boxes, but we have always been diverse and the only way to move us all forward is to let none of us fall behind. I have seen appalling racism. I have seen intersex, questioning folk, etc. pushed out or forgotten entirely in discussions. I have too often seen the well off white LG folk toss the rest of us under the bus for convenience. I have seen the same bullshit rhetoric come around trying to isolate transfolk, bifolk, and acefolk. Fuck that!
We stand together or we fall separately.
I am unapologetically queer. I am androgyne, non-binary, trans, androphilic, genderqueer. I was born in the year of Stonewall and have seen a lot of things come and go. Let's all stand together to resist oppression based on race, religion, sexuality, gender, gender expression, and class. Leave no one behind, and let no one peel off various groups the better to harm us all.
Happy Pride, and let's take care of each other, because the rest of the world usually won't.
* I feel the need to share this amazing piece of Medieval Art with y'all, because O.o http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/174484561487/gallusrostromegalus-jumpingjacktrash
* I think I intuited this, which is why the arc made sense to me, but I could not have put it into words. "I’m so fascinated by Luke’s arc in The Last Jedi and the negative response to it because the latter reveals so much about the former.:" http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/174482253602/oldadastra-luminoustunes
* TNG: Season 6 Rewatch:
- 6.25 Timescape: Riker feeding Data's cat, Spot, while Data is away. They answer a distress call from a Romulan ship. Meanwhile Picard, Deanna, Geordi, and Data are coming back from a conference in a shuttle. Deanna is mocking a guy who tried a super cheesy pick up; Data doesn't get it. Deanna complains about a boring lecture; Data doesn't get it. Picard went to a lecture on the wrong topic and does a funny impression also. Geordi actually went to an interesting lecture, but everyone but Deanna freezes, then unfreezes. They have trouble finding an Anomaly. Then she freezes and they don't. They match scans of Deanna and she is missing three minutes biologically. I have questions about how one would design a scan for that, but that is a side issue. They try to go to the pick up point. The engine cuts out. The nacelle is out of fuel and they are missing 47 days. Picard reaches for the bowl of rotten fruit, and is in sudden pain. His hand dramatically sped up and those nails are now long. Part of the ship is in super fast time, the other not. They are surrounded by assorted temporal disturbances. The time fragmentation is getting worse; the enterprise was missing; it turns out the Enterprise and Romulan ship are frozen together at the source with the Romulans shooting the Enterprise. They work out a special type of shielding so they can go aboard and sort it. They will have an hour or less. Geordi will monitor as the rest beam aboard. Three Romulans with disruptors were attacking the bridge. There is a power surge in engineering. Security was sent to sick bay and engineering. They must use Jeffries tubes to travel due to power drain, traveling around crews already there. A Romulan is shooting Dr. Crusher; a Romulan without Deanna noticing. The Romulans Worf beamed aboard seem injured; Deanna reports that Dr. Crusher will die if time is restored. Data reports a Warp Core breach, which is expanding, so time is moving, just super slow. They had been sending the Romulan ship power when the core breeched. Picard starts laughing, then collapses. He says he's dizzy, starts laughing again, then freaks the fuck out. They beam out. Picard was not properly protected and it was a sort of temporal bends. They are going no longer than 10 minutes and sticking together as the shields are imperfect; Picard must stay behind. The other three are off to the Romulan Engine Room. They are evacuating; the Romulans were trying to shut down the power transfer; the engine core is dead, though that's impossible. They find a space time fracture that is likely the source of the temporal fragmentation. It's possibly organic. It does a thing and suddenly everything on the Romulan ship is moving. Explosion! Everything runs backward. One of the Romulans wakes up and grabs Geodi, putting them into temporal shock. The Romulan turns out not to be a real Romulan and may not be native to our continuum. They find cellular structures in the source anomaly, but they are less complex. The alien was trying to save their young, trapped in the Romulan engine core. They need a natural gravity well as an incubator, but they mistook the engine core for a singularity. The power transfer was killing their young. One other is here, but the alien dies and phases out of existence. They decide to try to trigger the time run backward thing with scanners, so they can prevent the warp core breech and power transfer. The other alien grabs Data to stop them fixing it for some reason. It slows him enough he can't prevent the power transfer, data tries to sort it. Picard orders the continued evacuation of the Romulan ship; Deanna saves Dr. Crusher. It turns out the Romulan was trying to hit the faux Romulan and would have gotten her instead. Core breech immanent; Picard brings the runabout in to interrupt transfer, preventing core breech. The other alien vanishes; the time fragmentation is fixed; the aliens are back where they came from; they ferry Romulans home. Riker is scared of Spot. Data is trying to study the human perception of time, by boiling water and comparing the time s when he watches to the times he ignores it. Riker suggests Data try turning off his internal chronometer to see if he can get closer to the human experience.
- 6.26 Descent. This is the one that they promoed Hard when it was new because they scored Stephen Hawking. In the event we were disappointed as it was just a Physicist poker game on the holodeck with Data in the cold open. Yes, it was cool he was on Star Trek, but not this level of getting our hopes up cool, if that makes sense. Still, it is good to see him. The actual plot is they go to investigate a 274 person outpost that went silent. Whoever it was took the people they didn't kill in the initial attack, but did little damage beyond the body we see when they beam in. They find Borg. So many Borg. At this point Voyager didn't exist to run the Borg into the ground, so this was really exciting. Something TNG did really well was the exact right amount of Borg so people were really excited to see them instead of bored to tears, which was where we were when I stopped watching Voyager. These Borg have emotions. Data kills one in fury. Data. Having emotions. The Borg not only identify him as an artificial person, but they know his name. The Borg disappear (spacial distortion), leaving data to deal with the whole "I got angry" thing. Data asks to be relieved of duty, which makes sense. In the debrief they mention the weird behavior of these Borg. Acting as individuals, using the pronoun "I," concern for their dead. They Enterprise folk postulate this might have something to do with the Borg Hugh which they infected with free will in a previous season. The diagnostics show nothing wrong with data. Data insists he felt his first emotion. Geordi wonders how he could tell an emotion from a power surge. Data can't put how it felt into words, so asks Geirdi to explain what anger feels like for reference. Geordi can't, of course, listing synonyms, until he concedes he can't describe an emotion without reference to other emotions. The Admiral sent to prep for possible invasion interrogates Picard, whom she clearly believes compromised. She directly orders him to kill all the Borg next time he has a chance to infect them with a deadly virus. Meanwhile Data is telling Deanna about his experiments in attempting to induce various different emotions, including watching opera, comedies, and porn. This is so like how I would have gone about it in his place, that I am delighted. Nothing happened. Deanna points out he hasn't tried to trigger anger again, which is the logical starting point. He considers anger a negative emotion. She points out that it's not the emotion that's positive or negative in itself, but what you do with it. She points out that anger over an injustice can lead to a positive action to correct it. He counters that some emotions, like jealousy and hatred lead to bad things. She says anger doesn't have to lead to these things. Expresses worry that he might only be able to feel anger and things like hate and that might mean he's a bad person. Poor, sweet Data. Deanna tries to reassure him that he's a good person. Data admits he may also have felt pleasure right after he killed the Borg. They keep getting false distress calls from panicky colonies. Picard is is now beating himself up for his decision on Hugh. Riker said he did the moral thing. Data is in the holodeck replaying the fight with the Borg in a failed attempt to recreate the emotion. He runs a last sim with a much stronger Borg. There have been two real Borg attacks, all near the enterprise. They close on the Borg, and end up following it through the distortion they use for escape. The Borg attack and send borders, escaping while they dealt with it. One of the Borders survived. The Prisoner says they destroy "inferior biological organisms" instead of assimilating. Picard tries the "Locutus of Borg" ploy, but it fails. The Borg tries to recruit Data. "I was like you once, without feeling." He tempts Data with emotions, then manipulates him by getting him to admit killing felt good and using it to try to persuade Data he's unethical. The Borg goes heavy on the temptation. Data says Geordi is his friend. The Bog asks data if he'd kill Geordi to feel again. Data says yes. They flee in a shuttle. Picard wonders if Data is a prisoner or an accomplice. Either way, they must find him. They trigger the distortion and travel 65 light years. The Borg have been killing everyone on planets here. They decide to transport an away team down onto a planet with sensor foiling distortion with Riker and Worf in charge. Weirdly, transporters and comes work just fine. The shuttle is empty; data and the Borg has a three hour start. They plan searches, leaving a skeleton crew under Crusher with orders for her to flee if the Borg return. Picard's group is surrounded by Borg. Lore is their leader, but data has joined up with him. Lore announces they will destroy the Federation.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Have something you want to tell your congress Critters? Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* This is a cool person and the swimsuits are being made from an ethical source. LGBTQIA+ swimsuits: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NerdyKeppie?ref=l2-shopheader-name§ion_id=24021616
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal Lethran@gmail.com or paypal.me/Gwydion
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
* "Fresh clashes in Nicaragua leave 15 dead:" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44328052
* "Rajoy is gone. Can Pedro Sánchez tackle the corruption plaguing Spain?:" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/01/rajoy-pedro-sanchez-corruption-spain-scandal
* "In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything:" https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/world/europe/uk-austerity-poverty.html#click=https://t.co/vUrH86nNeg
"“Austerity isn’t a necessity,” he continued. “It’s a political choice, to move Britain in a different way. I can’t see a rationale beyond further enriching the rich while making the lives of the poor more miserable.”"
* "Volunteers 'shouldered Grenfell fallout':" https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-44295397
* "How Sweden is preparing for Russia to hack its election:" https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44070469
* "Trudeau declines to meet Trump because of US precondition:" http://www.tampabay.com/trudeau-declines-to-meet-trump-because-of-us-precondition-ap_world75093ce4b0544576ad7fd9a7e9d76392
* So not only did 45 decide to attack our manufacturing sector including Harley Davidson with a dramatic increase in the cost of materials, but he is hitting them going the other way by attacking our allies for funsies, thus causing them to hit them with big tariffs when they try to export. Why does 45 hate Harley Davidson so much? He knew this was going to happen. People have been saying this was going to happen for months. "EU opens WTO case against Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs:" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/01/eu-starts-retaliation-against-donald-trumps-steel-and-aluminium-tariffs
* "Trump's tariffs on US allies will shrink the savings Americans gained from tax cuts:" https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/trump-tariffs-will-shrink-savings-americans-gained-from-tax-cuts.html
* "Here’s the Email Russian Hackers Used to Try to Break Into State Voting Systems:" https://theintercept.com/2018/06/01/election-hacking-voting-systems-email/
* "New internet accounts are Russian ops designed to sway U.S. voters, experts say:" http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article212299529.html
* "The US government discovered evidence of high-tech cell phone spying devices being used near the White House:" http://www.businessinsider.com/high-tech-phone-spying-devices-may-have-been-used-near-white-house-2018-6?r=UK&IR=T
* "D’Souza after pardon: Trump wants me to be ‘a bigger voice than ever’:" http://thehill.com/homenews/media/390207-dsouza-after-pardon-trump-wants-me-to-be-a-bigger-voice-than-ever
* "Jared Kushner’s Close Friend Rick Gerson Under Scrutiny From Mueller Team:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/jared-kushners-close-friend-rick-gerson-under-scrutiny-from-mueller-team
* Price of the Mueller Investigation? About $16.7 million
Price of Security for 45's weekly long weekends to Mar-a-Lago? $17 million.
* The Sinclair Propaganda channels are Spinning the Pruitt scandal. "Pruitt tells pro-Trump Sinclair Broadcasting he cares ‘so much’ about taxpayer money:" https://thinkprogress.org/pruitt-appears-on-pro-trump-sinclair-tv-818e838647fa/
* They refuse to put money into real clean energy because they "don't think the government should pick winners and losers," but they want to prop up the coal industry with government funds. "Trump administration preparing 2-year coal, nuke bailout:" http://scipol.duke.edu/content/trump-administration-preparing-2-year-coal-nuke-bailout
* This is terrifying. "John Bolton's latest staff pick has spread unfounded anti-Muslim, anti-Iran claims:" http://www.newsweek.com/john-bolton-muslim-iran-fleitz-950104
* Your tax dollars at work. "EPA Spent $1,560 on 12 Silver Fountain Pens:" https://www.thedailybeast.com/epa-spent-dollar1560-for-a-dozen-silver-fountain-pens
* "Hate on the Ballot: At Least 8 White Nationalists in Races Across US:" https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/politics/Hate-on-the-Ballot-At-Least-8-White-Nationalists-in-Races-Across-US-484270591.html
* TW: Pedophilia, Rape, Domestic Violence, Gynocide and assorted horrifying misogyny. Seriously, this man is terrifying. "Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He’s A Pedophile:" https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nathan-larson-congressional-candidate-pedophile_us_5b10916de4b0d5e89e1e4824
* The pardons seem reasonable, but I have a host of concerns about most of the rest of it. "Greitens signs bills, issues pardons before leaving office:" http://www.newstribune.com/news/missouri/story/2018/jun/01/greitens-signing-bills-leaving-office/728704/
* So the Republican argument is that the Republican decision to freeze Puerto Rico in a second class state so that vulture capitalists can dismantle it, and the Republican decision to refuse Puerto Rico the same quality of disaster relief that Texas and Florida got and make them take loans instead of getting desperately needed funding even though the people of Puerto Rico are American citizens because Republicans are racist has all been somehow a secret plot by the Democrats to get Republicans to render Puerto Rico nearly unlivable so that people have to move en masse to other states where their votes count and that therefore the citizen rights of Puerto Ricans need to be revoked to render it illegal for them to vote in the states where they live. How Democrats, while begging and pleading with Republicans to do the decent thing, are somehow forcing Republicans to be so greedy and racist that their cruelty is still killing people on Puerto Rico is not explained. Republicans, your racism is showing. "Candidate says displaced Puerto Ricans shouldn't be able to vote in Florida:" https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/22/politics/florida-republican-candidate-puerto-ricans-voting-registration/index.html
* "What the legal process looks like for an immigrant child taken away from his parents:" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/27/what-the-legal-process-looks-like-for-an-immigrant-child-taken-away-from-his-parents/
* TW: Rape. "Corrective Rape- A South African Speaks :" https://vaspider.tumblr.com/post/174392440381/corrective-rape-a-south-african-speaks
* I just want to remind people that we are all stronger together and we need each other. If you are trying to kick trans people (of any sexual orientation) out of Pride and out of the movement? You are wrong. Transfolk of colour started the Stonewall Riot. Transfolk of colour started Pride. Transfolk of colour have bled and died for the movement and we wouldn't be where we are without transfolk and bifolk and the Ace folk who were always a part of the movement. Yes separatists/TERFs periodically try to to steal the movement away from the rest of us and to miseducate each generation of our youth. Yes, people periodically try to white wash our history, or erase whole segments of us, or force us into neat little boxes, but we have always been diverse and the only way to move us all forward is to let none of us fall behind. I have seen appalling racism. I have seen intersex, questioning folk, etc. pushed out or forgotten entirely in discussions. I have too often seen the well off white LG folk toss the rest of us under the bus for convenience. I have seen the same bullshit rhetoric come around trying to isolate transfolk, bifolk, and acefolk. Fuck that!
We stand together or we fall separately.
I am unapologetically queer. I am androgyne, non-binary, trans, androphilic, genderqueer. I was born in the year of Stonewall and have seen a lot of things come and go. Let's all stand together to resist oppression based on race, religion, sexuality, gender, gender expression, and class. Leave no one behind, and let no one peel off various groups the better to harm us all.
Happy Pride, and let's take care of each other, because the rest of the world usually won't.
* I feel the need to share this amazing piece of Medieval Art with y'all, because O.o http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/174484561487/gallusrostromegalus-jumpingjacktrash
* I think I intuited this, which is why the arc made sense to me, but I could not have put it into words. "I’m so fascinated by Luke’s arc in The Last Jedi and the negative response to it because the latter reveals so much about the former.:" http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/174482253602/oldadastra-luminoustunes
* TNG: Season 6 Rewatch:
- 6.25 Timescape: Riker feeding Data's cat, Spot, while Data is away. They answer a distress call from a Romulan ship. Meanwhile Picard, Deanna, Geordi, and Data are coming back from a conference in a shuttle. Deanna is mocking a guy who tried a super cheesy pick up; Data doesn't get it. Deanna complains about a boring lecture; Data doesn't get it. Picard went to a lecture on the wrong topic and does a funny impression also. Geordi actually went to an interesting lecture, but everyone but Deanna freezes, then unfreezes. They have trouble finding an Anomaly. Then she freezes and they don't. They match scans of Deanna and she is missing three minutes biologically. I have questions about how one would design a scan for that, but that is a side issue. They try to go to the pick up point. The engine cuts out. The nacelle is out of fuel and they are missing 47 days. Picard reaches for the bowl of rotten fruit, and is in sudden pain. His hand dramatically sped up and those nails are now long. Part of the ship is in super fast time, the other not. They are surrounded by assorted temporal disturbances. The time fragmentation is getting worse; the enterprise was missing; it turns out the Enterprise and Romulan ship are frozen together at the source with the Romulans shooting the Enterprise. They work out a special type of shielding so they can go aboard and sort it. They will have an hour or less. Geordi will monitor as the rest beam aboard. Three Romulans with disruptors were attacking the bridge. There is a power surge in engineering. Security was sent to sick bay and engineering. They must use Jeffries tubes to travel due to power drain, traveling around crews already there. A Romulan is shooting Dr. Crusher; a Romulan without Deanna noticing. The Romulans Worf beamed aboard seem injured; Deanna reports that Dr. Crusher will die if time is restored. Data reports a Warp Core breach, which is expanding, so time is moving, just super slow. They had been sending the Romulan ship power when the core breeched. Picard starts laughing, then collapses. He says he's dizzy, starts laughing again, then freaks the fuck out. They beam out. Picard was not properly protected and it was a sort of temporal bends. They are going no longer than 10 minutes and sticking together as the shields are imperfect; Picard must stay behind. The other three are off to the Romulan Engine Room. They are evacuating; the Romulans were trying to shut down the power transfer; the engine core is dead, though that's impossible. They find a space time fracture that is likely the source of the temporal fragmentation. It's possibly organic. It does a thing and suddenly everything on the Romulan ship is moving. Explosion! Everything runs backward. One of the Romulans wakes up and grabs Geodi, putting them into temporal shock. The Romulan turns out not to be a real Romulan and may not be native to our continuum. They find cellular structures in the source anomaly, but they are less complex. The alien was trying to save their young, trapped in the Romulan engine core. They need a natural gravity well as an incubator, but they mistook the engine core for a singularity. The power transfer was killing their young. One other is here, but the alien dies and phases out of existence. They decide to try to trigger the time run backward thing with scanners, so they can prevent the warp core breech and power transfer. The other alien grabs Data to stop them fixing it for some reason. It slows him enough he can't prevent the power transfer, data tries to sort it. Picard orders the continued evacuation of the Romulan ship; Deanna saves Dr. Crusher. It turns out the Romulan was trying to hit the faux Romulan and would have gotten her instead. Core breech immanent; Picard brings the runabout in to interrupt transfer, preventing core breech. The other alien vanishes; the time fragmentation is fixed; the aliens are back where they came from; they ferry Romulans home. Riker is scared of Spot. Data is trying to study the human perception of time, by boiling water and comparing the time s when he watches to the times he ignores it. Riker suggests Data try turning off his internal chronometer to see if he can get closer to the human experience.
- 6.26 Descent. This is the one that they promoed Hard when it was new because they scored Stephen Hawking. In the event we were disappointed as it was just a Physicist poker game on the holodeck with Data in the cold open. Yes, it was cool he was on Star Trek, but not this level of getting our hopes up cool, if that makes sense. Still, it is good to see him. The actual plot is they go to investigate a 274 person outpost that went silent. Whoever it was took the people they didn't kill in the initial attack, but did little damage beyond the body we see when they beam in. They find Borg. So many Borg. At this point Voyager didn't exist to run the Borg into the ground, so this was really exciting. Something TNG did really well was the exact right amount of Borg so people were really excited to see them instead of bored to tears, which was where we were when I stopped watching Voyager. These Borg have emotions. Data kills one in fury. Data. Having emotions. The Borg not only identify him as an artificial person, but they know his name. The Borg disappear (spacial distortion), leaving data to deal with the whole "I got angry" thing. Data asks to be relieved of duty, which makes sense. In the debrief they mention the weird behavior of these Borg. Acting as individuals, using the pronoun "I," concern for their dead. They Enterprise folk postulate this might have something to do with the Borg Hugh which they infected with free will in a previous season. The diagnostics show nothing wrong with data. Data insists he felt his first emotion. Geordi wonders how he could tell an emotion from a power surge. Data can't put how it felt into words, so asks Geirdi to explain what anger feels like for reference. Geordi can't, of course, listing synonyms, until he concedes he can't describe an emotion without reference to other emotions. The Admiral sent to prep for possible invasion interrogates Picard, whom she clearly believes compromised. She directly orders him to kill all the Borg next time he has a chance to infect them with a deadly virus. Meanwhile Data is telling Deanna about his experiments in attempting to induce various different emotions, including watching opera, comedies, and porn. This is so like how I would have gone about it in his place, that I am delighted. Nothing happened. Deanna points out he hasn't tried to trigger anger again, which is the logical starting point. He considers anger a negative emotion. She points out that it's not the emotion that's positive or negative in itself, but what you do with it. She points out that anger over an injustice can lead to a positive action to correct it. He counters that some emotions, like jealousy and hatred lead to bad things. She says anger doesn't have to lead to these things. Expresses worry that he might only be able to feel anger and things like hate and that might mean he's a bad person. Poor, sweet Data. Deanna tries to reassure him that he's a good person. Data admits he may also have felt pleasure right after he killed the Borg. They keep getting false distress calls from panicky colonies. Picard is is now beating himself up for his decision on Hugh. Riker said he did the moral thing. Data is in the holodeck replaying the fight with the Borg in a failed attempt to recreate the emotion. He runs a last sim with a much stronger Borg. There have been two real Borg attacks, all near the enterprise. They close on the Borg, and end up following it through the distortion they use for escape. The Borg attack and send borders, escaping while they dealt with it. One of the Borders survived. The Prisoner says they destroy "inferior biological organisms" instead of assimilating. Picard tries the "Locutus of Borg" ploy, but it fails. The Borg tries to recruit Data. "I was like you once, without feeling." He tempts Data with emotions, then manipulates him by getting him to admit killing felt good and using it to try to persuade Data he's unethical. The Borg goes heavy on the temptation. Data says Geordi is his friend. The Bog asks data if he'd kill Geordi to feel again. Data says yes. They flee in a shuttle. Picard wonders if Data is a prisoner or an accomplice. Either way, they must find him. They trigger the distortion and travel 65 light years. The Borg have been killing everyone on planets here. They decide to transport an away team down onto a planet with sensor foiling distortion with Riker and Worf in charge. Weirdly, transporters and comes work just fine. The shuttle is empty; data and the Borg has a three hour start. They plan searches, leaving a skeleton crew under Crusher with orders for her to flee if the Borg return. Picard's group is surrounded by Borg. Lore is their leader, but data has joined up with him. Lore announces they will destroy the Federation.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Have something you want to tell your congress Critters? Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* This is a cool person and the swimsuits are being made from an ethical source. LGBTQIA+ swimsuits: https://www.etsy.com/shop/NerdyKeppie?ref=l2-shopheader-name§ion_id=24021616
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal Lethran@gmail.com or paypal.me/Gwydion
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com