The Stochastic Game
Ramblings of General Geekery

We still have some pretty spectacular hair-ice here every now and then. That is, until the good fluffy boy completely destroys it.

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A few weeks ago, the good fluffy boy and I were up in Squamish and we found an off-leash park that apparently doesn’t really “end” anywhere as much as it leads up out in the wild and onto the mountains…

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“This is Free Trader Beowulf” by Shannon Appelcline is to Traveller what the “Meints Index to Glorantha” is to, well, Glorantha. We need more books like these! It’s so interesting to read about the history of classic #TTRPG games.

The coffee-table-sized "This is Free Trader Beowulf", described as "A System History of Traveller". It talks about the history of the game, the people behind it, the various publications, editions, publishers, and more.
The book includes "collector checklists" which is actually quite useful when you're a collector! :)
This is the kind of content you'll find in there, some interesting stories, some fun pictures, and some very nerdy-looking people with 1970s hair styles.
The book even has maps! Woohoooo!

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A couple weeks ago, the good fluffy boy and I went over to Burnaby mountain! Nice view and crisp, fresh air as always.

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Next on my first-time Trek watchlist was “The Undiscovered Country”. Wow, this is probably my favourite Trek movie so far. There’s action, comedy, intrigue, moral questions, suspense! The plot goes places, there are great characters, an even greater cast… it’s just good Trek!

The movie poster for "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country". Frankly, the title is the only mediocre thing about this movie.
Christopher Plummer gives great gravitas to "Chang", the main antagonist of the movie. The only problem is I would have preferred him to quote some Klingon war-literature in the original language!
You can totally tell who the traitor is but it was still a good story arc!
Yes it's a giant mess but we are the protagonists and goddammit we will fix everything with just one short speech from Captain Kirk! And then everybody will clap!

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So at the beginning of Star Trek V, Kirk is doing some death-defying rock-climbing before duty comes knocking… the beginning of Mission Impossible 2 is OBVIOUSLY a homage to this!

What an annoying little shit Spock is, sometimes. "hey Kirk, hey Kirk, be careful, don't slip and full stay focused, no not like that, more focused, holy shit Kirk your mind is fucked, and why are you doing this anyway, it's not logical, your choice of past-time is bullshit and oh hey you fell see, I told you so"
Ethan Hunt also doing some rock-climbing, but he's not an overweight middle-aged man, so it's less believable

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Next on my first-time Trek watchlist: “The Final Frontier”! Oooh boy. When I saw it was directed and co-written by Shatner, I knew it would be bad. The only positive point was trying to do some philosophical god-alien thing like in TOS. But it failed at that, and at pretty much everything else.

The movie poster for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. And here, "the final frontier" sort of relates to the "great barrier", the thing that NOBODY COULD EVER CROSS, and those who tried NEVER CAME BACK. So of course the heroes' starship goes through it without any problem, and comes back from it without any problem. Barely an inconvenience.
Frankly, I'm with Spock here. If I was sitting at a campfire with Kirk and McCoy and they tried to get me to sing "Row your boat" with them, I would feign ignorance. Holy shit that was painful.
Sybok's special power is sort of interesting, in a very ham-fisted way, but, I don't know, he's just not very convincingly written. The whole plot is stupid anyway, unless I missed something -- can't he just get his own damn ship and go through the great barrier himself? Why does he have to do this whole kidnapping plot?
"A big blue guy with questionable facial hair hygiene, shooting lightning from his eyes and spouting nonsense, is not basis for a religious cult! Help me! I'm being repressed!"

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Next on my first-time Trek watchlist was “The Voyage Home”! Sure it’s nice to see the Enterprise crew out of their comfort zone, but the premise with the whales is stupid, time travel in Trek has always been bullshit, and turning this into an 80’s “fish out of water” comedy? Ugh.

The movie poster for "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home"! At first I thought the title referred to being stranded with a Klingon starship behind enemy lines or in uncharted space, having to find their way back to Earth... but no, instead I got some stupid plot about humpback whales. At least I hope the movie increased public interest in animal preservation efforts...
Kirk trying to explain Spock to 1980s people with "He did too much LDS in the 60's" was quite funny, not just because he got "LSD" wrong, but because it could also be interpreted as Kirk saying Mormons look weird
McCoy doesn't apparently understand the concept of "don't mess with the timestream continuum", and gives some magic 23rd century medicine to a random lady in a corridor
Sure, let's teleport a bunch of whales along with 350 tons of sea water. I'm sure the whales won't get completely freaked out and die of a heart attack, and I'm sure that ship below will not suddenly sink

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I’m binge-watching the remaining Star Trek movies because I want to get to TNG and see what that fuss is about. Anyway, the 3rd movie, “The Search For Spock” is, errr, OK? It’s just a big excuse to bring Spock back, which ruins his sacrifice, so I’m not super on board but, oh well 🤷🏽

The movie poster for "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". I love these old school posters, they don't do them like this anymore. Also, good on Leonard Nimoy getting to direct this one. He did a pretty decent job there.
"Okay yeah we knew you Vulcans have your burial rites and weird mystic bullshit, but we shot your son not even into space as Federation Navy protocol dictates, but onto the surface of some weird-ass planet that can grow life from nothing. We managed to be ignorant, disrespectful, and stupid"
George Takei gets to kick some ass! I'm so happy for the guy.
"What's going on?" "The writers have found a convoluted way to bring back a beloved character! Watch out!"

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Continuing my first-time watch of all Star Trek in release order, I finally come up to “The Wrath of Khan”! It was a lot of fun, with much better pacing and story structure than the first film. The plot is full of holes and contrived beats but at least it’s exciting! I jumped when I finally saw THE MEME in context!

Movie poster for Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan
Captain Kirk speaks to some random crew member for apparently no reason... EXCEPT OF COURSE IT PAYS OFF LATER OH MY GOD WE DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING
Khan Noonien Singh is not happy and frankly he's justified. What sort of justice system is the Federation running, that some random starship captain can enact judgment and sentence on people in such as careless way?
OH HEY IT'S THE MEME!!!!!! It happened a lot earlier in the movie than I thought -- I always thought that somehow Khan kills Spock and that's why Kirk is mad? But nah, Kirk is mad because his ship got damaged a bit.

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