A member of the OpenXCom forum named Souljah1214 asked about the possibility that aliens exist. Since this is an interesting enough question, I decided to write this short entry covering the basics of exobiology, as understood by a layman like me.
First of all: UFOs are not necessarily from the outer space. Many ufologists assume they are more likely to come from the future or some parallel universe. Or perhaps from past Earth, which they left at some point (the most popular time would be the Cretaceous).
Now, let's concentrate on actual aliens from another planet. There are countless estimations, more or less scientific, like the Drake equation. I personally would like to point to the following necessary assumptions:
1) Life is not a one-time event.
Claiming that life is unique to Earth would be pretty heliocentric, since its chemical processes aren't particularly exotic. Even the development of DNA, or some equivalent, seems fairly probable to me, given enough time (and there is much time available).
2) Any cradle of life can create intelligent life.
However, highly organized life is a different story. Rising above bacteria level is extremely difficult for energy management reasons, and on Earth it worked only due to a miraculous and highly improbable symbiosis of cells with other cells, which evolved into mitochondria (otherwise it would be simple cellular life only). This is explained further in this short article. And it is rather safe to say that complex life is necessary for intelligence as we know it.
Therefore, while I have little doubt that there is life out there, I am hesitant to say the same about aliens with plasma guns.
3) Alien intelligence is comparable to ours.
X-Com aliens are, well, alien, but are they really? Their physiology, society, culture and artefacts are parallel to ours - they understand transportation, engineering, warfare and so on. But is this true for a hypothetical alien intelligence out there, assuming it had the chance to appear at all?
The answer is, I don't know. However, I do know one thing: all living things must manage limited resources, and therefore understand such concepts as competition and hostility, but also economy, cooperation and trade. Therefore, no matter how alien they are, we can always communicate with them by exchange of resources (unless we have nothing to offer them, but I find it unlikely). I can't say anything more about other aspects of alien intelligence, because there is no data; refer to good sci-fi books for more elaboration (S. Lem, A. C. Clarke, W. J. Williams and more).
This perspective may not seem overly optimistic about meeting our space cousins, though it's not overly pessimistic either. Still, even there is none, there is still the parallel universes theory and other sources of weirdness that can also be taken into consideration as for the source of aliens, so do not despair! I would say that if our universe indeed keeps forking into other universes, then the existence of aliens is not just probable, it's inevitable. Of course many of these aliens - those from the nears regions of the multiverse - are completely like us, but that's another story...
wtorek, 24 czerwca 2014
poniedziałek, 20 sierpnia 2012
"The Legend of Korra" review
Let me say it straight: I think Avatar: The Last Airbender is the best adventure series made in America since Reboot, which means at least a decade (I mean America as a continent, since "Reboot" was made in Canada, not United States). Actually, it was so good that I can't even remember anything in it I'd really like to see improved. It aimed to take the best things from two legacies - American cartoons and anime - and succeeded spectacularly.
Is "The Legends of Korra" as good as the original? Such questions are never easy to answer, and to be honest not even fair - the sequel not only has to be as good as the first one, but also be something else to avoid repetition. How can Aang's story - pure Eastern-style fantasy with monsters, spirits, oppressed villages, epic wars and so on - compare to the diesel punk urban fantasy that is the new series? It can't, duh. "The Legends of Korra" is an entirely different series, with more shout outs to the original than real common elements. Remember folks, the gaang is gone and it's not coming back, ever.
Enter Team Korra.
If you are reading this, chances are you have seen the series already, but just in case let me recap (spoilers ahead): seventy years have passed and Korra is the next avatar, moving in to the Republic City, modelled after US cities of the Roaring Twenties, to finish her training under the watchful eyes of Aang's son. Being of rural heritage (southern Water Tribe, naturally), she is both impressed and repulsed by the metropolis as she attempts to adapt to her new home. Naturally, things are actually worse than they seem at first: apart from organised crime, class struggle, work alienation and bad musicals, the city is plagued by a quasi-communist social movement of bender haters, led by a masked guru who claims he can take away bending powers. It is them, as well as a certain politician, who Korra will have to fight against, and she will do it with new friends: two bender brothers (one firebender and one earthbender) and a non-bender girlfriend of one of them who has knack for technology inherited from an industrialist father.
How did it turn out? Well, my feelings are mixed at best, but according to the universal review guidelines I should start with the good things. And the single best thing was the setting. Republic City is a very detailed, very thought-out location that both looks and feels impressive. There are all sorts of things and people you would expect in an Al Capone movie, from industrial barons, crafty politicians and radio stars to stern policemen, oppress worker class, and gangsters to lowly thugs, vagabonds and other outsiders - with a touch of supernatural of course. There are also more schizotech ideas like motorcycle gangs, but it serves to emphasize the element of technology that rivals bending, so I'm not complaining. There is also a sports arena where benders play a variant of dodgeball and which pretty much ruins the first half of the series, but I'll get to that in a moment.
Right, the bad stuff. I'll say this straight: it hurt me to see how simplified this story was in relation to the original series. Sure, "The Legend of Aang" was a kid show, but it was actually pretty deep - especially the characters, who were all complex and often hard to pin down. Sadly, in "The Legend of Korra", this is not so: the main character, while not perfect, is extremely transparent from the very beginning. While Aang was cheery and almost feminine on the outside and at the same time sad and hard as diamond on the inside, Korra is just an athletic, hot-blooded prodigy with a strong sense of self-importance. There is little visible development of Korra over the show; she's learning about how the world really is, instead of how she thinks it is, but it doesn't seem to really interact with her on a more personal level. Her views and thoughts are unwavering, she mostly learns how to survive better, which I dare say is not much for a supposed spiritual leader of humanity. The same goes for her companions: while stuff happens to them, they simply shrug it off as soon as the problem disappears and return to their old routines like nothing happened. In short, these characters are plain and seriously underdeveloped, which is probably the last thing I'd expect from creators of the original Avatar series! The villains in "The Legend of Korra" suffer from a similar problem of being one-dimensional and boring; or actually worse - they were unconvincing in their goals. Honestly, I still don't quite understand why Amon did what he did, other than the series needed a bad guy.
Sadly, this also applies to the entire conflict between the benders and non-benders, which is never closely examined, even once. Not only it is the most important plot in the entire series, but also it's quite multi-faceted: while the equalists are clearly prejudiced and irrational, the benders' physical and political domination is a fact. Perhaps declaring a war on the benders is a poor way of dealing with this, but they certainly have a point or two. Aang would be the first one to listen to them and try to find a compromise, or at least feel troubled about the situation; but Korra is simply outraged and all she wants is to kick their asses for questioning what she considers to be right. It appears to me that if Korra was born a non-bender, perhaps she would happily join the equalists, because she's such a self-proclaimed hero; this fact never occurs to her though, she never considers the revolutionaries' ideas for a second. And the same applies to the supposedly wise Tenzin, Aang's son, not to mention Korra's friends. Way to go, folks; Aang, Roku and Kyoshi would be soooo proud. Perhaps the only character I found okay was chief Lin Beifong, who naturally had simple personality which didn't require much work in order to turn out fine (and being the biggest badass in the series helps too).
I still have a few things to complain about regarding this series, but they all seem to stem from the same sin of oversimplification. I mentioned the equalists' leader, Amon, who went to extreme lengths in order to... what? Take over the city? That's a very poor motivation if you as me; or rather, not explained properly. Well, there is a hazy story about how his father trained him to avenge his banishment from the Republic City and how Amon rejected this legacy... but somehow still fulfilled it... and that it was very sad or something. Honestly, Naruto fillers had characters better defined than this! Another villainous example is Hiroshi Sato, who serves Amon in order to get revenge for his dead wife, but who is extremely unconvincing in his hatred (or, dare I say, madness?). However, the most disgusting example in my opinion was probably the city council: it consisted of several people from various bending traditions, but the only two to speak up was Tenzin and his opponent Tarrlock - the rest being demoted to passive voting devices, always following the words of the person who spoke last. Umm, who made them leaders of anything, much less a major city? They're not even comic reliefs! (Well, there are no comic reliefs in the series anyway, unless you consider Bolin to be funny.) Moreover, references to the original series were too numerous to my tastes, although definitely not to the Star Wars level. And as a sociologist and an enthusiast of history, I also find the idea of progressing from a barely industrialized world to a XX-century metropolis within a few decades hard to buy, but that's another matter.
It may seem like I hated everything about "The Legend of Korra", but it's not true; it was actually fun to watch, considering all the action and stunning visuals. It was, however, unworthy of being an Avatar series, because it lacked what Avatar was all about: wisdom, warmth and good jokes. It felt more like a variation of "Tron: Uprising", sharing the elements of quasi-supernatural fighting in an elaborate urban environment, even though I feel "Tron" was better at it (because that's what it was supposed to be). Really, even the action part could be done better, since the first arc of the story was trivial sports drama with a boring romance subplot while the grand finale was really disappointing with extremely cheap move of magically resolving all drama points, but it was still watchable.
When second season of Korra's adventures comes up, I'm probably going to watch it, but I no longer expect it to be anything spectacular. However, there is still hope, right? Katara would say so anyway. So I'm giving the series another chance, and don't you dare fuck it up, boys.
PS. If you want some more Korra bashing and also enjoy video reviews, check out this blog entry.
Is "The Legends of Korra" as good as the original? Such questions are never easy to answer, and to be honest not even fair - the sequel not only has to be as good as the first one, but also be something else to avoid repetition. How can Aang's story - pure Eastern-style fantasy with monsters, spirits, oppressed villages, epic wars and so on - compare to the diesel punk urban fantasy that is the new series? It can't, duh. "The Legends of Korra" is an entirely different series, with more shout outs to the original than real common elements. Remember folks, the gaang is gone and it's not coming back, ever.
Enter Team Korra.
If you are reading this, chances are you have seen the series already, but just in case let me recap (spoilers ahead): seventy years have passed and Korra is the next avatar, moving in to the Republic City, modelled after US cities of the Roaring Twenties, to finish her training under the watchful eyes of Aang's son. Being of rural heritage (southern Water Tribe, naturally), she is both impressed and repulsed by the metropolis as she attempts to adapt to her new home. Naturally, things are actually worse than they seem at first: apart from organised crime, class struggle, work alienation and bad musicals, the city is plagued by a quasi-communist social movement of bender haters, led by a masked guru who claims he can take away bending powers. It is them, as well as a certain politician, who Korra will have to fight against, and she will do it with new friends: two bender brothers (one firebender and one earthbender) and a non-bender girlfriend of one of them who has knack for technology inherited from an industrialist father.
How did it turn out? Well, my feelings are mixed at best, but according to the universal review guidelines I should start with the good things. And the single best thing was the setting. Republic City is a very detailed, very thought-out location that both looks and feels impressive. There are all sorts of things and people you would expect in an Al Capone movie, from industrial barons, crafty politicians and radio stars to stern policemen, oppress worker class, and gangsters to lowly thugs, vagabonds and other outsiders - with a touch of supernatural of course. There are also more schizotech ideas like motorcycle gangs, but it serves to emphasize the element of technology that rivals bending, so I'm not complaining. There is also a sports arena where benders play a variant of dodgeball and which pretty much ruins the first half of the series, but I'll get to that in a moment.
Right, the bad stuff. I'll say this straight: it hurt me to see how simplified this story was in relation to the original series. Sure, "The Legend of Aang" was a kid show, but it was actually pretty deep - especially the characters, who were all complex and often hard to pin down. Sadly, in "The Legend of Korra", this is not so: the main character, while not perfect, is extremely transparent from the very beginning. While Aang was cheery and almost feminine on the outside and at the same time sad and hard as diamond on the inside, Korra is just an athletic, hot-blooded prodigy with a strong sense of self-importance. There is little visible development of Korra over the show; she's learning about how the world really is, instead of how she thinks it is, but it doesn't seem to really interact with her on a more personal level. Her views and thoughts are unwavering, she mostly learns how to survive better, which I dare say is not much for a supposed spiritual leader of humanity. The same goes for her companions: while stuff happens to them, they simply shrug it off as soon as the problem disappears and return to their old routines like nothing happened. In short, these characters are plain and seriously underdeveloped, which is probably the last thing I'd expect from creators of the original Avatar series! The villains in "The Legend of Korra" suffer from a similar problem of being one-dimensional and boring; or actually worse - they were unconvincing in their goals. Honestly, I still don't quite understand why Amon did what he did, other than the series needed a bad guy.
Sadly, this also applies to the entire conflict between the benders and non-benders, which is never closely examined, even once. Not only it is the most important plot in the entire series, but also it's quite multi-faceted: while the equalists are clearly prejudiced and irrational, the benders' physical and political domination is a fact. Perhaps declaring a war on the benders is a poor way of dealing with this, but they certainly have a point or two. Aang would be the first one to listen to them and try to find a compromise, or at least feel troubled about the situation; but Korra is simply outraged and all she wants is to kick their asses for questioning what she considers to be right. It appears to me that if Korra was born a non-bender, perhaps she would happily join the equalists, because she's such a self-proclaimed hero; this fact never occurs to her though, she never considers the revolutionaries' ideas for a second. And the same applies to the supposedly wise Tenzin, Aang's son, not to mention Korra's friends. Way to go, folks; Aang, Roku and Kyoshi would be soooo proud. Perhaps the only character I found okay was chief Lin Beifong, who naturally had simple personality which didn't require much work in order to turn out fine (and being the biggest badass in the series helps too).
I still have a few things to complain about regarding this series, but they all seem to stem from the same sin of oversimplification. I mentioned the equalists' leader, Amon, who went to extreme lengths in order to... what? Take over the city? That's a very poor motivation if you as me; or rather, not explained properly. Well, there is a hazy story about how his father trained him to avenge his banishment from the Republic City and how Amon rejected this legacy... but somehow still fulfilled it... and that it was very sad or something. Honestly, Naruto fillers had characters better defined than this! Another villainous example is Hiroshi Sato, who serves Amon in order to get revenge for his dead wife, but who is extremely unconvincing in his hatred (or, dare I say, madness?). However, the most disgusting example in my opinion was probably the city council: it consisted of several people from various bending traditions, but the only two to speak up was Tenzin and his opponent Tarrlock - the rest being demoted to passive voting devices, always following the words of the person who spoke last. Umm, who made them leaders of anything, much less a major city? They're not even comic reliefs! (Well, there are no comic reliefs in the series anyway, unless you consider Bolin to be funny.) Moreover, references to the original series were too numerous to my tastes, although definitely not to the Star Wars level. And as a sociologist and an enthusiast of history, I also find the idea of progressing from a barely industrialized world to a XX-century metropolis within a few decades hard to buy, but that's another matter.
It may seem like I hated everything about "The Legend of Korra", but it's not true; it was actually fun to watch, considering all the action and stunning visuals. It was, however, unworthy of being an Avatar series, because it lacked what Avatar was all about: wisdom, warmth and good jokes. It felt more like a variation of "Tron: Uprising", sharing the elements of quasi-supernatural fighting in an elaborate urban environment, even though I feel "Tron" was better at it (because that's what it was supposed to be). Really, even the action part could be done better, since the first arc of the story was trivial sports drama with a boring romance subplot while the grand finale was really disappointing with extremely cheap move of magically resolving all drama points, but it was still watchable.
When second season of Korra's adventures comes up, I'm probably going to watch it, but I no longer expect it to be anything spectacular. However, there is still hope, right? Katara would say so anyway. So I'm giving the series another chance, and don't you dare fuck it up, boys.
PS. If you want some more Korra bashing and also enjoy video reviews, check out this blog entry.
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