So there’s these memes that have been making the rounds on various social media for at least a few years now that, quite often, make me feel seen. E.g.:
Yes, I in fact do sometimes wake up on the middle of the night and lose a good hour or so of sleep, or space out in front of my computer screen at work, thinking about such things. (And I have to admit that it started at a pretty early age: when I was pretty little, I remember being really bothered by the fact that the Howells brought a big trunk full of money and multiple changes of clothes for a three-hour tour or that the professor brought along a shelf-full of general science books for the same purpose.)
I was partly inspired to write this post by a recent discussion in a Discord group I belong to in which one of these conundrums came up – albeit one that I eventually resolved in my own head and doesn’t trouble me as much any more: namely, how Captain Picard was able to deal with living another entire lifetime while under the control of the Kataan probe in the TNG episode “The Inner Light” (S5E24). Basically, the question here is that once he was released by the probe, how could Picard, who had just essentially lived out about three or four decades as a completely different person, readjust to being a ship’s captain and a star fleet officer? Would he even remember how to do the job? Or even the names of about half of the crew? My personal solution for this is that I think the probe had some kind of fail-safe that – once the person is released – allowed the implanted memories to be integrated and the preceding consciousness and memories to reassert themselves, to ensure that the person doesn’t go insane. Because the host going nuts would defeat the purpose of implanting all of that information about their long-dead civilization in the first place.
The next one, though, has occasionally tied my brain in knots since my early teens. Back then, for some reason I started to wonder what would happen if Legionnaires Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy decided to have a baby. Specifically, what would happen if Duo Damsel used her power to split into two separate individuals while she’s pregnant? Would two fetuses also be created, or would just one of the bodies remain pregnant? And if the former is the case, what if she goes into labor while split into two? That means two separate babies would be born, so they then effectively have twins – or would the two babies merge when she merges back into her single form? I’m gonna stop here, because my head is starting to hurt…
Finally, we go back to Star Trek for one that only occurred to me recently, about a few months ago, when I yet again re-watched most of TNG. The season 7 episode “Inheritance” (S7E10) introduces a character named Juliana Tainer, a scientist who claims to be the former wife of Data’s builder, Noonien Soong, and who also had a hand in creating Data – so in a sense she’s his ‘mother.’ As the episode progresses, we learn *spoiler alert!* that Juliana Tainer is in fact an android who was created by Soong after the real Juliana was fatally injured during the Crystalline Entity’s attack on their colony. He implanted all of her memories into the android, but allowed her to believe that she was still human and then let her go off and live her life when she decided to leave him. In a holographic message to Data contained in a chip in the android Juliana’s positronic brain, Soong pleads with Data to refrain from revealing her true nature to Juliana so that she can retain her humanity.
Now, this one really got my wheels turning, to the point that and I literally stayed up in the middle of the night a few times over the past few months pondering the implications of this episode. Because if you think about it, Juliana is Soong’s masterpiece, a far greater achievement than Data. He created a perfect replica of a human being, and even made her impervious to superficial scans (so no one realizes she’s an android unless they *really* look). And, most importantly, Juliana herself is completely oblivious to this fact. This means that Soong had to ensure that she wouldn’t figure it out on her own: not only is she modeled to age gradually like a human, which would also entail experiencing at least the minor discomforts of physiological aging, like tiring more quickly, sore joints, deteriorating eyesight, etc. (and again, she’s built such that no physician she may consult about these problems would suspect that she’s an android), but also – and most crucially I think – she has a functioning artificial digestive system. Not just being able to taste food and beverages (something Data can do as well), but also feel hunger and thirst on a daily basis and so eat and drink, and then generate the by-products of such activities. And said by-products would have to look and, sorry to be so graphic, smell right, so she would never suspect. Furthermore – and I won’t go into great detail here – when Data and the rest of the Enterprise crew meet her, she’s married to another scientist on the planet they’re visiting. So she’s apparently fully functional in terms of physical intimacy as well, with neither her nor her husband being any the wiser.
Anyway, what bothers me the most, I suppose, is that this is a truly impressive feat of engineering that was just sort of passed over by everyone in that episode. I know Data decided to comply with Soong’s wishes and not reveal the truth to Juliana and the world at large, which was naturally the right choice, given that otherwise a bunch of Federation cybernetics specialists would swoop in and try to poke and prod and disassemble her or whatnot (like they attempted with Data at one point). But still, he and several of the Enterprise’s top officers are aware of the truth and you’d think that Geordi at least would have commented on it…
So what about the rest of you? Feel free to share the geek speculation that keeps you up at night.
HA! that meme was me a few month ago I think.
I was playing a pokemon nuzlocke(a way to play pokemon games with fanmade rules, the main rule is permadeath) and I was dreading an upcoming matchup, because my team was very weak agains it and it could be a full sweep(meaning losing all my pokemon and having to restart the game, a 30-40 hours in). And there I was, thinking how can I beat this challenge without losing everyone in the progress and when I think hard about thing, I frown a lot
So my wife thinks I’m mad all day, and in the night she finally asks what is wrong with me why I’m mad, and then I explain the deal to her and she just rolls her eyes(she likes playing pokemon, she doesn’t like the idea of nuzlocke). Hey, if you ask then you shouldn’t roll your eyes, you are the one who asked lady!
Another PoA question: how is it that if the Ape rulers kept everyone ignorant of the Age of Human Rule, the time-traveling apes in Escape are fully familiar with it?
My guess is that as all Carggites have triplicating power, the fetus can split and reintegrate with her; if she gives birth while divided it can reintegrate after birth. But it’s a good question.
I remember a line from the Five Year Later period where it mentioned that during his time as a Bismollian politician, Matter-Eater Lad was notorious for consorting with “voluptuous Cargittes.”
For me it’s most often Marvel’s Celestials’ lore (this fixation predates the Eternals movie by years).
As I understand it the planet is an egg thing isn’t necessarily 616 canon since it is from the Earth X books (as far as I know it hasn’t been a thing referenced in a mainline comic), but I’ve always thought it was really, really, dumb. What has always made way more sense to me is that new Celestials aren’t born, that they aren’t a even single species in any conventional sense. That when a sentient being, regardless of species, develops energy manipulation or reality warping abilities beyond a certain point that they transcend and become a new Celestial. I feel like there have been stories where Celestials have taken a particular interest in Franklin Richards. And it would neatly account for why Celestials keep mucking about with the DNA of species in ways that seem to encourage the development of super powers. And then seem really disappointed with the results a lot of the time. It’s just a bit of head canon that I find really appealing, and as a result I tend to run every new bit of Celestials lore that pops up in a comic against it to see if I can make it compatible with the idea or not. The most recent stuff that plagued me was the stuff from Jason Aaron’s current Avengers run that ended up with the Avengers new HQ being a Celestial corpse. I have only read the first couple issues of the current Eternals comic but I’m expecting there will be stuff there that gives me mental workout once I get back to it.
Oh my god, reading this I realized that my wife stopped years ago asking me why I look so weird/angry and what I´m thinking about when I look like this. Prior to Covid I still got that question from colleagues or trainers at dreadfully boring (for lack of a better term) business meetings because I apparently always looked very critical. In those situations though I had to come up with excuses (“I don´t think this technique is bad at all, I´m just so bored by Your presentation that I tried to add up all the casualties in John Ostranders Suicide Squad run”).
I usually don´t think much about comic books anymore. In school/college I would sometimes drift off into creating my own Marvel Super-Hero Team with all the guys not yet in other teams (very strict rule!).
Nowadays I´m obsessed with movie scenes. Last one being Halloween Kills: “if that dude had been a little bit smarter and the mob would not have split up into three/four-people groups could they have slowed Michael enough for others to arrive?” That sort of thing (and with that movie the possibilities to negate the side-characters stupidity are endless). Another scene I´m obsessed about is the shootout in Wind River: “if the good guys would have had one more police officer on the scene might he have taken out one key bad guy…”
You get the gist. I´m weird.
Oh, and the Legion Of Super-Heroes has endless potential for obsessing. Just thinking about the Time Trapper makes my head hurt.
I used to spend boring moments mentally rehashing LSH or Avengers history. Now I use either Kindle or Hoopla to read.
For me it’s something that happens when I am trying to go to sleep. Sometimes I do give up and grab my iPad to read for awhile but it almost always takes me awhile to fall asleep so I can’t always do that or I’d be a wreck from lack of sleep.
You made me think about Duo Damsel and Bouncing Boy, and gave me one of those : as Duo Damsel is a carggite, and they can split into 3 different bodies, but one of the bodies was killed, does the baby, as part carggite, split into three bodies instead of two, while the mother only split into two bodies ?
Oh, man. You just made that one three times worse for me. I feel my head starting to spin already…
JHL-
If I am remembering it right, the Black Galaxy Saga in Thor 419-424 showed a Celestial being born, and it wasn’t from a planet egg.