Time Travel, Alternate Reality, or Dream?

***This entry contains spoilers. Don't read if you don't want 'em.***

A staple of the science fiction genre is the "What if?" plot. In a "What if?" plot, the writers are free to go outside the continuity of the series, sometimes drastically changing things. The difference between this plot, and the main continuity, is that for the plot, the writers ask "What if X happened?", where X is something completely off the wall, like a major character becoming a vampire in a setting where vampires don't exist, or something like that.

Now, "What if?" plots can generally be broken down into four types: Weirdness, Time Travel, Alternate Reality, and Dream/Hallucination.

Weirdness - This would be something that, while out of the ordinary in the continuity, is within the scope of the universe. Prime examples would be in the Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action", where the Enterprise encounters a world that is literally out of a gangster novel. Weird, but it still fits in the continuity.

Time Travel - Time travel stories typically involve going backwards or forwards in time, and both have their fair share of perils. Go back, and you risk changing the past, and negating your own existence. Go forward, and what you learn there could change the future. This is the second most common form of "What If?" scenario.

Alternate Reality - In a universe where parallel realities exist, sometimes the writers will step into those alternate realities, and see what might have been. A good example of this would be in the X-men comics, where they routinely explore parallel worlds, with the best example being the "What If?" series. This is by far the most common type of scenario when dealing with a "What If?" plot.

Dream/Hallucination - Rarest of all is the dream/hallucination scenario. In part, writers are not fond of using this option because, if it is done wrong, it can seriously anger fans. In this setup, suddenly, inexplicably, things are completely different than they used to be. However, when you get to the end of the plot, you realize it was all a dream, or perhaps a vision or hallucination caused by some outside force. Regardless, none of it is real, and usually it serves to teach the main character of the plot some lesson.

How can you tell what kind of "What If?" plot you're in? Well, there's a few signs to look for.

If they have a simple means of getting into and out of the situation, then you're looking at normal weirdness. If they just have to beam up to the ship, or jump through the stargate, or something like that, then you're in normal weirdness territory. The situation falls within the "norm" of the series, even though you have soldiers with MP-5s dealing with natives armed with crossbows fighting enemies with rayguns. Its par for the course, in other words. Note that if the series centers around going back and forth in time, or dimension hopping, then any time travel or alternate realities count as normal weirdness.

But what if that isn't the case? Then you're looking for one of the other situations.

Time travel is usually the easiest of the three remaining scenarios to discover. Typically, you'll see some means of travel that takes you elsewhere in time. Either its a time machine, or your means of faster than light travel slingshotted you around a star, or something of that nature. Regardless, time travel usually means that you either go back in time, or forward, and they are very obvious with the method. There are exceptions, like Planet of the Apes, but for the most part, people are up front with time travel.

Alternate realities can be tricky. Depending on how 'close' the realities are, you might not know you're in a different world until later. However, like time travel, there's almost always some clear means of travel between the realities. A wormhole, or a transporter accident, or something like that is always present. Maybe everything went purple for a moment. Regardless, there's always a clue that something has changed.

The Dream/Hallucination method is by far the most subtle of the "What If?" plots. Many times, something will happen, and things will seem to progress on, but in reality, that' where the dream begins, like when Dorothy hit her head in the beginning of the Wizard of Oz. But there are times when it sneaks up on you.

Take the recent episode of Sanctuary. The episode starts off with Magnus waking up in a post-apocalyptic world, with no memory. We know that this is not in the Weirdness category, so we can eliminate that altogether. After Will tells Magnus that she's been dead for three years, time travel appears to be the most likely option. However, the clues point elsewhere.

First, in Dream/Hallucination episodes, there's always something the main character is trying to remember, something they keep coming back to, even though it seems to have no real bearing on the matter at hand. A trip to Honduras, for instance.

Second, look for something out of the ordinary. Again and again through the episode, you see a white, misty shape moving through the background around Magnus. This is a clue that things are not what they appear.

Third, the 'friend' who keeps trying to distract the main character from their work. In this case, Will trying to get Magnus to leave, and give up. This usually is a sign that this is simply a mental battle between different parts of the main character's subconscious.

Finally, things conveniently happen for no real reason. Magnus happens to escape will, and happens to find another survivor in a city full of zombies? If it seems too convenient to be true, its usually false.

By the second commercial break I had called it as being a dream. This is confirmed by the fact that as Magnus pieces together her memory, combined with the information from a conveniently recoverable computer log, she makes the connection that it is her fault everything happened. And then the illusion fades away, the spirit of the tomb having conveyed their warning to stop Magnus from opening the vial of doom-stuff.

If you can read the signs, it is plain that the whole thing was a dream.

Remember Remember

Remember remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

Honoring heroes

Have you heard about these ‘Honor Flights’?

Basically, the idea is that private citizens contribute their time and money to fly WWII veterans to Washington, DC, to see the WWII memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, and other symbolic sights, as a way to show their gratitude for these veterans.

Each veteran who goes on one of these Honor Flights is accompanied by a specially trained ‘guardian’, and a physician is present on the flight. The only thing the veterans have to worry about is getting to the airport.

This is a fabulous way to honor our distinguished veterans. Every veteran of our armed forces has sacrificed their time and service to protect our country. Many sacrificed even more. These Honor Flights are the least we can do to honor those who remain.

If you would like more information on the Honor Flights, go to http://www.honorflight.org

The Art of the Sword

I’m a collector.

In the past, I’ve collected hats, baseball cards, action figures, and shot glasses, for no other reason than they were neat looking.

I collected many types of things in turn, none of them holding my interest for long. It was in my senior year of high school that I discovered the thing that has held my interest ever since. It was that year that I bought my first sword.

We were on a school trip to Disneyworld, and we decided to spend the day at Medieval Times. For those of you who don’t know, Medieval Times is a place that has been made to look like a castle, and inside, you sit at these long tables on benches, where they serve you a huge chunk of meat on the bone, and all the servers are dressed in period costumes. And while you’re eating, they light an indoor arena, and have jousting competitions!

Well, having a little bit more money on hand than was good for me at the time, I stopped by the gift shop and purchased a replica longsword to take home with me. It wasn’t the best looking blade there, but it was in my price range, and I instantly knew I had to have it.

Since then, my collection has swollen to over a dozen swords, as well as the odd dagger or scythe. None of them are overly valuable, though some are certainly worth more than others. But they are all beautiful to me. There’s something in the sight of the steel leaving the sheath, the weight of a finely balanced blade. It is hard to describe what I feel when I hold a sword in my hands.

It stirs up some romantic part of my soul that wishes I lived in a simpler time. It is a part of me that wishes that there were no guns. Anyone can pick up a gun and shoot someone. It doesn’t take that much training or skill to fire a Colt .45. But to wield a sword takes long hours training, building your skills. It requires a certain level of athletic grace, a balance of power and speed, all controlled, all tightly disciplined. It is why if you watch a master at work, you see that wielding a blade is almost like a dance. It is an art.

There is something about the line a katana traces through the air as it swings, the rapid jabs of the epee in fencing, the crushing power of the greatsword as it crashes down upon helm and shield. The dance of steel is entrancing. I long to learn that dance, and make it’s steps my own.

Beyond that, there is a certain discipline that comes with learning a martial art, but especially one of the martial arts involving weapons. You have the physical training that tones and strengthens the body, and you work on controlling that power and speed, so that you aren’t simply flailing about wildly. Rather, every motion has a purpose, and it is controlled, preventing wasteful actions. That control carries over into other facets of life, as well.

Wouldn’t the world be better if the art of the sword was a way of life?

Public Options

For months now, I've listened to both sides of the health care reform debate, paying special attention to the Public Option that has been talked about ad nauseum.

The primary arguments against the public option (not including the patently irrational scare tactics like death panels or communism) seem to be:

1) It will drive private insurers out of business.

2) It will lead to long waits for 'vital' care.

3) It will lead to rationing care.

4) It will drive costs up.

5) It won't work efficiently.

So lets examine these arguments.

5) It won't work efficiently.

This argument seems to be based primarily on the idea that anything the government does is necessarily going to be complicated beyond measure, and have a mile of red tape, and generally not work well.

The counter to this argument, of course, is that the system works so efficiently now. Really, no one ever has to deal with red tape when dealing with an insurance company, or wade through page after page of legalese to find out if the procedure they need is covered or not.

4) It will drive costs up.

Yes, there are people claiming that including a public option to compete against private insurers will actually drive costs up. These people are bolstered by a report funded by the health insurance industry that seems to confirm this view.

The counter to this argument, however, is that the report in question only looked at four items out of the massive bill. There is no report covering the entire proposal that says prices will go up due to increased competition.

3) It will lead to rationing care.

The idea behind this argument is that if the government runs health care, then they can say what procedures will be covered, and who gets what.

The reality is that health care is already rationed. Insurance companies decide what they will or won't cover, and can decide not to cover certain people for certain treatments. And if they say no, you're basically SOL. So if rationing occurs under a public option, the only change will be that it is government bureaucrats instead of private bureaucrats doing the rationing.

2) It will lead to long waits for 'vital' care.

This objection is propagated by horror stories out of Canada about people who had to wait months to see a doctor for treatment. Basically, they say that with public health care, you would have people waiting years for life-saving treatment.

This is just patently false. The so-called 'vital' care that these stories generally refer to are things like cataract surgeries, and other elective procedures. Emphasis on elective. As in, not life-threatening. In Canada, if you have an emergency, you can go and get treated immediately.

1) It will drive private insurers out of business.

You all know how this song goes. No one can compete with a subsidized public option that doesn't have to worry about profit and blah blah blah.

Honestly, I find this argument the most laughable. Here you have people saying that the insurance companies provide the best care for the cheapest price, but that a government plan that is less efficient would put them out of business, because private enterprise can't compete against the government.

Really? Allow me to retort: Fed-Ex and UPS. Both compete directly against the government. Both do dramatically better than the government. How? They have found a niche that works for them, and that allows them to be leaner, and more efficient.

Just because the government provides a baseline insurance plan doesn't mean that people can't get a supplemental plan, if they need care that isn't covered in the baseline plan. Will the big monolithic insurance companies that kill competition die out? Yes. Will they be replaced by smaller, leaner companies that can specialize in niche services? Yes. Private insurance won't go away, but it will change. And anyone who says the system doesn't need to change is clearly on someone's payroll.

A public option will force competition into the markets where two main companies have a stranglehold on insurance. This will drive costs down. It will also ensure that people with preexisting conditions are able to find affordable health care, even if they change jobs.

Is it a perfect system? Of course not. In a perfect system, we wouldn't need insurance in the first place. But this is an imperfect world, and so we must do what we can.

Why do teens commit suicide?

Since May 5th, the town of Palo Alto, California has seen four teenagers from the same high school kill themselves by stepping in front of a train, all on the same stretch of tracks. Others have been spotted by police and concerned citizens and stopped before they could follow them.

Why are these teens (one as young as 13) killing themselves?

Most of the coverage talks of 'suicide clusters' and how this is a cry for attention as the teens see the effects of another teen killing themselves like this. But that doesn't answer the question on what drove them to that point.

When I was younger, people always said that "These are the best days of your lives, so enjoy them," or something to that effect. I know a lot of other people hear the same thing at that age, from people who are older, and have gone off into the 'real world'.

Frankly, I can't think of a more depressing thing to tell a teenager. Do you remember your high school days? Not just the good parts you like to remember. I'm talking about everything. The teasing, the drama, constantly feeling like no one understood you, everyone trying to pressure you into one thing or another, teachers piling homework on you, standardized tests, and looming SATs, the pressure to figure everything out about where you want to go in life, so that you can go to college, and get the right degree, with the right references, to get the job that will make you enough money to survive for the rest of your life.

And then you go and tell them that this is the GOOD part? Really, the only question is why more teenagers don't commit suicide.

Being a teenager is stressful enough with all the problems of the here and now. Dumping the knowledge that things are only going to go down hill from there makes people wonder why they should bother dealing with this, if it wasn't going to get better.

I can say that when I was that age, there were many times that I seriously considered committing suicide. I was always on the outside of every group. I was single, and always had been. I wasn't popular, and I wasn't the top of my class, and I didn't have an escape. And I had all this pressure to decide what I was going to do in life, what college I was going to go to, and all of that. On top of that, most of the music that was popular at the time was all bright and happy, or talked about love and sex, and all those things I lacked, and that just made me feel worse. I put up a front of being happy, but inside, I was basically dead already. And there were times I seriously considered what would be the best way to kill myself.

I didn't have access to a gun, so that was out. There weren't any sleeping pills, or anything like that in the house, so I couldn't do that. Jumping into traffic was out, because you could live through that if you weren't lucky. The only trains that came through were big freight trains, and they never went that fast, since they hadn't had time to get up to speed yet, so I couldn't do that. Electrocution was out, because you could possibly survive it. Fire was definitely out, because I wasn't big on the whole pain thing. I didn't know where to get enough drugs to OD on, and even if I did, I didn't have the money to get them, so that was out.

Why am I still alive?

It isn't because of some religious experience. Most of my experiences with religion and 'religious' people only serve to push me away from them.

It isn't because of friends. I didn't really have any. There were acquaintances, but no true friends.

It isn't because of family. I love my family, but in those moods, I always thought that they would be better off without me causing trouble all the time.

It isn't because of any psychologist or therapy. The times I went, I just felt like they were preaching at me, and I shut down.

It isn't because of any hopes or plans for the future. I couldn't see anything beyond tomorrow.

So why am I still alive?

Its because there wasn't a convenient way of killing myself, and I was too lazy to go actively searching for a way, when those moods were on me. So I would sit, and be depressed, and eventually the mood would pass, for a while.

Its because I eventually found a release for those feelings, a way to express them and purge them safely.

What was this release? It was actually three things that allowed me to find a measure of peace.

First, I 'discovered' bands like Metallica, and the lyrics of rage and anger were more therapeutic than any amount of psychobabble.

Second, I started playing more video games. I would build cities in SimCity, just to unleash disaster after disaster upon them. But my bread and butter was always flight simulator type games, like X-wing, where you blasted the enemy from the skies. I could spend hours blasting enemy spacecraft.

Third, and most important, I discovered RPGs. I'm not talking about things like Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft. I'm talking Dungeons and Dragons, Mutants and Masterminds, and Shadowrun. I'm talking MUDs, MUSHes, and MOOs. It was this escape from reality that really saved my life.

When I was playing Dungeons and Dragons, I could be the vile necromancer who crushed his foes. In Mutants and Masterminds, I could be the vigilante who lived by the motto "I'm not a hero, I'm a bad man that does bad things to bad people." In Shadowrun, I could be a criminal, running the shadows and doing things of questionable morality, all for a few bucks. In short, RPGs allowed me to express the darkness of my soul, and give those feelings a release.

The discovery of RPGs was like opening the lid on a pressure cooker. The underlying causes were still there, and might always be there, but by throwing myself into this fantasy world, I could cope, and I wasn't brooding on them any more. All my anger, all my rage, all my hopelessness, all my loneliness, I took it all, and projected it on my characters, and I was free of it, for a time.

But there was a downside to this. I began to throw myself into the fantasy world, to the point where I can no longer relate to people in real life. I don't know what to say or what to do when there isn't a computer screen between me and another person, or we're both pretending to be other people. People say to be yourself, but myself is the reason I ran to the fantasy world.

Is this a healthy lifestyle? Willfully throwing yourself into a fantasy, to the point where you long to get rid of reality altogether, is not healthy. But my circumstances would have to improve dramatically before I could lead a 'healthy' life. Between living a fantasy, or spiraling into depression, I'll take the fantasy any day.

There are still times when I get depressed, when I consider, "To be, or not to be?" But now, instead of brooding, I turn the music up, pour myself a drink, and drop into the fantasy world. And eventually the mood passes.

Guns for everyone?

A report on CNN today got me thinking about Gun Control. Too often, the debate about what to do about guns turns into a shouting match. On one side, you have the NRA, warning that if the government puts any restrictions on gun ownership, the next day they’ll be breaking into homes all over the country and ripping guns out of their owners’ hands. On the other side, you have people who are families of the victims of gun violence, and are no less emotional in their cries for guns to be banned in the cities.

As is usually the case in American politics, the moderates have been shouted down into silence. The people who can actually compromise have been forced to be silent by the radicals.

No rational person wants to take all guns away. No rational person believes that everyone should be allowed to buy any kind of weapon they want and can afford. Yet too often this is what the choices presented to people seem to be.

But for those of you who can still be rational about things, can’t we come to some sort of compromise? Surely no one can argue that they need a fully automatic assault rifle to go duck hunting? Can’t we agree that an assault rifle has only one purpose, to kill people? Do you really need an Uzi for home defense? Please. Can’t we agree that people who want to own guns should go through a class to use those guns safely?

Guns are made to kill. That is their sole purpose. Whether you kill animals or people, they are a tool designed to kill whatever they’re pointed at. Anyone who argues this point is either a fool, or trying to twist things to his own benefit. Guns are made to kill.

Guns should be controlled. I do not say get rid of all guns. Not only is it impractical and unconstitutional, but I agree with the need for weapons to defend the home, or to go hunting. No, I’m not saying we should take all the guns. I’m saying we should keep violent offenders from buying guns. I’m saying we shouldn’t allow people to buy assault rifles or automatic pistols. You can defend your home as easily with a shotgun as with an AK-47. But killing large numbers of people is harder with a shotgun.

Stop yelling, and compromise.