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The Prequel to the Prequel’s Prequel

Hmmm, I think I got that title wrong. I wanted to write something catchy, but obviously language puzzles are not really my thing. In the case of Star Wars storytelling backwards in time, this triple 'prequel' looks fine, but again, if I put all the main Jedi characters of various ages in chronological order, i.e., something like this: Gella > Avar > Anakin > Luke > Rey, then it does look like I missed one more word, 'prequel,' in it. Or... well... if we consider Rey's story to be the only sequel to the first prequel's main story in this thread, which started with "A New Hope", the very first movie of the franchise that initiated it all... then I could be correct after all. Right? Oh, darn it, let it be... So, let's explore the latest prequel in the galaxy far, far away and long time ago, minus 150 years.


Minus 150 years means 150 solar cycles of Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, an entire planet evolved into one giant city before Phase I in the Star Wars canon, described in the books, started with "The High Republic: Light of the Jedi".  Phase II consists of two (adult) books, "The High Republic: Convergence" and "The High Republic: Cataclysm", and it is placed officially around the year 382 BBY (382 Coruscant years before the battle of Yavin within "A New Hope").

After finishing the books, I couldn't shake the same feeling I had after watching "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story". Due to the early history of VFX in creating the movies, the very first trilogy came, from this distance, not visually great and had a hard time conjuring the "wars" part from the title. Don't take me wrong; when I was young and saw "A New Hope" for the first time, I watched it with my mouth wide open almost the entire duration of the film. The second trilogy jumped into the trap of using too many visual effects, which, as a result, looked more like a fairy tale than anything else. The latest trilogy came to fix things a bit, but still, in my mind, only "Rogue One" rendered the war as it should be—as a brutal and believable one with tremendous action and a fabulous ending. In the world of the "Star Wars" books that belong to the same franchise canon, "The High Republic: Cataclysm" provided the same feeling as "Rogue One" once did. The latest book fully justified the entire "Star Wars" premise. There were moments during the reading that I couldn't believe that words alone were capable enough to portray the battle of such epic proportions using only the reader's imagination and nothing more.


Behind the pen of the latest novel was Lydia Kang, and compared to the prequel book and those three from Phase I, "Cataclysm" is perhaps the best of them all. Sure, Lydia's storytelling is perfect with lots of characters well described, but she was in luck—the story that ended the first phase of the High Republic era had it all: the already mentioned fast-paced action described in great detail, interesting and respectable villains, and multiple storylines from protagonists belonging to the "good guys" (or to the Light side of the Force, to be exact), including both the Jedi and people originating from the Republic forces and those from planets Eiram and E'ronoh, whose backstory is the backbone of the entire phase. If we add young(er) Yoda and Yaddle fully included in the story, the author really had an easy task to pack one of the most interesting Star Wars books to date.

Surely, the end is not concluded, and we are left with many loose ends on both sides (villains and heroes), but that was to be expected. As hinted in previous books, the Leveler (a Nameless species), with the ability to overwhelm force-sensitives and nullify their connection to the Force, is something I am sure we will encounter again in the future. The future of Star Wars canon, that is, as it is absent from the movies, and I guess their fate will be resolved in the void after Phase 2 and the Battle of Yavin, or the time described with 0 BBY. 


To me, one of the most interesting facts after reading all five Star Wars adult books from the High Republic times and those I also read that don't belong to the canon or directly to the official franchise was the need to picture all the species from the galaxy far, far away. The history of watching movies helped a lot, but I definitely needed to do a little research to find out what all the species look like to allow my imagination to be as accurate as possible while reading.

The images I chose to illustrate the text of this blog story are not entirely accurate, as they belong to different Star Wars concept arts, but the High Republic stories are still very young, and we will have to wait for the future movies for more photographic details. I, for one, would definitely want to see at least one movie dedicated to these events in the upcoming years.
 

The War No One Wants

Before the start of the Great War, the prevailing sentiment in most, if not all, European countries was that victory in any major military conflict was guaranteed only if it was fought with a large, durable, well-trained, and modern army. The dawn of the 20th century established the environment in which countries entered the race to mobilize the largest part of the qualified population, to create faster motorized transport for troops and logistics, to use state-of-the-art communications and the greatest range of artillery, as well as to use various new drugs in medical treatments like morphine and even cocaine to boost the troops and fuel their fighting mood. Compared to 19th-century wars, new warfare was revolutionized and upped to the next level. By June 1914, the stage was set, and only a spark was needed to fire off the conflict.

But was it really inevitable? Was the military race alone enough to cause the conflict in which 20 million died and many more were wounded? Or did it need a plot to be played in just a specific order that would lead to the unavoidable horror? Did it need at least one party to actually want the war to happen? To honestly believe that a war on that scale could be won?


When asked if the Great War could have been avoided, Ronald Spector, professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University, said that ’if Sir Edward Grey hadn't been the foreign secretary in Britain, then Britain might not have necessarily entered the conflict. Furthermore, if German Kaiser Wilhelm II hadn't been the flaky person he was, then the Germans may have made different decisions, and in the end, if Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who at the time was the head of the faction that wanted to avoid war, had not been killed, the outcome might have been different’. According to Professor Spector and many others, the real trigger for the First World War was indeed only a combination of these unfortunate coincidences that took place in the summer of 1914—military preparations, the alliances, the people in power—all of those steps that built one after another created the Great War.

In the aftermath, the war did happen, and to many, including me, the question was not who won it four years later but rather what stage it created in the following years. It ended the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire lost a lot of territory, and the Turkish Empire ceased to exist. On the other end, new statehoods arose along with a new wave of nationalism, as many felt they hadn't achieved enough for their sacrifices and losses. History books at the end of the war never really recognized the winner or the loser. It officially ended in the Compiègne railway car on November 11, 1918, and the final document was signed as an armistice.


But what about today, a century and a change after the war that could have been avoided and the war that allegedly nobody wanted? Is there a new similar danger we could repeat again? The one that, according to Ken Follett, could also be one tragic accident, all things considered. Is there a war that no one wants today? The one that could leave a permanent mark on the surface of humanity. The one that will not be fought in trenches and the one that will truly be worldwide this time.

I think we all know the answer to that question. Yet, just like before, and even though nobody really wants it to happen, it could happen nevertheless. Just like before, it only needs a plot that, if set in motion, step by step, spark by spark, decision by decision, can lead to the point of no return. Are we today, on the first anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, already walking that path? We already have everything the Great War had before it started. Countries have already been in the arms race for a long time—the race for ultimate supremacy and world military dominance. Army budgets are filled up to the roof. More than 10,000 nuclear warheads of various kinds are already in military stockpiles for use by missiles, aircraft, ships, and submarines. We also have questionable leaders like before, even flaky ones like in Professor Spector's description. Let's just hope we will have better luck this time.


However, in light of today's story, let's get back to Ken Follett's fiction. I am really a big fan of his work, and his current thriller, "Never", is his vision of how the Great War could repeat today. In a chronological order of events that one by one led to the brink of a nuclear war, he amazingly described a fictional story that looks so real and so familiar. And so possible. He begins the book with a quote from a Chinese proverb, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain", and it amazingly describes the entire book premise. I couldn't agree more with Stephen King when he said that "Ken Follett can't write a bad book", and I could only add that "Never" is definitely more than a book. One of his best. One of those that keeps you thinking long after you finish it.

Refs:
https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/was-world-war-i-avoidable
https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/the-great-myth-world-war-i-was-no-accident/
 

Time Travel and Superposition in Dark

I was no more than four years old when our car got stuck on a snowy hill decades ago. Everyone but me went outside to push to get us out of the frozen road. More people gathered from other cars to help each other, and soon everyone was engaged in a small rescue operation. That certainly didn't mean I didn't help—as well as others pushing the car from the outside, I did the same from the inside. From the back seat, I put my hands on the front and pushed hard. In my defense, deep down I knew that what I was doing was kind of weird and useless. At the time, I just didn't know why. I was just ashamed sitting alone and doing nothing. Well, like they say, with age comes wisdom, and now I know that what I did was physically impossible, just like in the case of Baron Münchhausen—when he got himself and his horse he was sitting on out of a swamp by pulling his own hair upwards. And just like in an old expression about an absurd and impossible thing one can do—if I were to pull the bootstraps on my shoes up, lift myself into the air, and jump over the fence.

In science fiction, the word bootstrap is also used to portray the impossible task in all the paradoxes that are always hard to understand. Within time travel, the bootstrap paradox is a theoretical paradox that occurs when an object, information, or human is sent back in time and becomes trapped in the infinite cause-effect loop in which it no longer has a detectable point of origin. For a simple example, if I somehow send a copy of this very blog post to my younger self before I write it in the first place, the origin of the text becomes utterly unknown. It exists in the time loop, and I become just somebody who typed it in. Yet, the text will still have my own style of writing and my own thoughts written down and not somebody else's. Hopefully, you will not find this case implicitly weird, because weird in this blog post is yet to come.


I have been aware of the existence of Netflix's 'Dark' for a long time now, but due to its scientific background and complexity, I knew it required continuous binge time to watch it, and last weekend I finally decided the time was just right, and I swallowed all three seasons in just three days. Like no other TV show, it was solely based on time travel and quantum superposition, and... in a word, it was outstanding. With lots of characters to follow through both space and time, it did require full concentration, but thankfully, due to the fantastic direction, script, and performances of all involved, it was more than understandable and enjoyable, to say the least. It is impossible to continue this without spoilers, so if you are eager to watch it first, this is the point of this blog post to stop reading, and I advise it strongly.

Anyhow, Dark's premise is all about bootstrap paradoxes. There are multiple plotlines in the show heavily embedded in time loops, just like my example of this blog post traveling to the past. If that was weird, imagine what this kind of paradox, involving time travel of real people and their intertwined stories, could do to your sanity only as an observer. On top of that, season one passed with very few or no special effects, and there was no reason for that either. In Dark, all the post-time-travel effects are already embedded in the future, or the present, from where they traveled back in time. For example, Helge already had all visible face scars that were consequences of Ulrich's time travel. Also, the stories about the murdered woman on the bottom of the lake were already socially spread even before Katharina was murdered in her own time travel.


Even though Mikkel's time travel was the prime story behind Dark, where he ended up being a father to Jonas, the main protagonist, for me the strangest and most ingenious bootstrap paradox is Charlotte, who was born in the future, traveled to the past as a baby, and became a mother to Elisabeth, who in her own future became a mother to Charlotte herself. The endless loop between them lies in the fact that they are both mother and daughter to each other. And even this is not the weirdest bootstrap compared to the entire Nielsen family. Martha and Jonas' child, who is in the show and the strangest character of them all, in his own time travel became a father to Tronte, who was Martha's own grandfather. This practically means that Martha's son was his own great-great-grandfather. In the aftermath, most of the members of the Nielsen family are practically the result of a direct or inherited bootstrap paradox and have to thank their existence to time travel itself.

To be honest, I was so perturbed and unsettled with all the relationships by the end of season two that I was not sure how they would come out of this at all. There were so many open loops with no indications how it could go any further. At that point, I thought that this show would go down the drain very quickly, or they must come up with something even more out of the ordinary to continue the story. And then, at the very end, in the last episode, came another Martha, who stood by the dead Martha and answered Jonas' question about where she came from exactly with "Die Frage ist nicht aus welcher Zeit, sondern aus welcher Welt". Well, I am not fluent in German at all, but I know a word or two, and in this case I knew very much the difference between Zeit and Welt. In the outcome, even before the subtitle showed up, I was left staring at the screen with my mouth wide open.


The final season introduced even more time travelers, both new and doppelgangers, but more importantly, the story started to unveil now with the introduction of the cause and effect of the quantum superposition mirrored in the macro world(s) and character's actions. In the quantum world, superposition means particles can exist in different states and even multiple places at the same time. The weirdness comes if we try to observe the process. At that instant, superposition breaks into just one outcome of their many. Just like with the double-slit experiment of light behavior* or in binary superposition with Schrödinger's cat in the show explained by H.G. Tannhaus in one of the episodes.

The difference between the micro and macro worlds, with time travel involved, was that in the macro realm it was now 'possible' to act differently in the same time loop and in one pass to choose one outcome and in the other a different one. That allowed for the same superposition collapse, but in two time loops to create two different Jonas' and two different Marthas and to even further complicate the intertwining situations now with three worlds involved. In the ingeniously written ending of the show, as I expected, time travel loops were impossible to untangle, and the only outcome was, again with time travel interfering, to save one world at the expense of the other two and, by doing so, to prohibit any time travel in the original world.

The ending of two worlds disappearing was just perfect and beautiful, and the very last scene explains which of all the characters survive existence and which ones were only products of either direct or inherited bootstraps and therefore not possible to exist in the final world.

* Reality of Double-Slit Experiment
https://www.mpj.one/2022/11/reality-of-double-slit-experiment.html

Strange world of physics and time travel at MPJ:
https://www.mpj.one/search/label/physics
https://www.mpj.one/search/label/timetravel

Refs:

Dark refs:
https://www.thisisbarry.com/film/netflix-dark-the-bootstrap-paradox/
 

Science Fiction at its Best

When it comes to the space exploration within hard science fiction, the one where science is embedded in the narrative to the point that it is impossible to tell a story without it, only rare novels stand out among all the others in the ocean of short stories and novels published online and in traditional ways. Sure, it's not really possible to be familiar with the entire vast universe of sci-fi literature of today compared to past times, especially before the internet, when it was easier not to miss a noticeable book on the public shelf. 

However, even today, the true classics in the genre are easily recognizable, perhaps in all those moments during or after reading when we wonder not if the plot is possible or scientifically plausible but when we fail to distinguish the fiction part from the real science. To achieve this, authors can rely not only on their writing narrative but also on their ability to successfully entangle science and fiction, and not only for those who understand the scientific background with ease.


Despite Andy Weir's latest novel, "Project Hail Mary", being only partly true hard science fiction, it might be one of those rare gems after all. It has everything: Martian-type humor, a real apocalyptic villain, amazing friendship among main protagonists, the author's proposed answer to the origin of life in our galactic neighborhood, a couple of twists in the 'how I didn't see that one coming' fashion, and the genuine and tearful happy ending.

On the other side, to be entirely honest, the apocalyptic scenario, even though nicely scientifically plotted, is too far-fetched for my taste and understanding, but still, it is a bright refreshment compared to the usual man-made villainy we used to deal with in most of the science fiction of today. The same goes for a fictitious lifeform capable of transferring energy into mass and vice versa. It does look strained and not very much in Weir's fashion, considering his previous books that are more scientifically based on the technology of today.


Nevertheless, it is easy to conclude that "Project Hail Mary" is coming with an instant classic flavor and undoubtedly standing shoulder to shoulder with all-timers such as "Contact" by Carl Sagan or "Rendezvous With Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke or several modern authors who boldly explored the science behind artificial intelligence, vacuum decay, block universe, holographic principle, simulation theory, etc. I genuinely enjoyed reading it and will be anxiously looking forward to the upcoming movie.

Image ref:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ISS-10/.../Russian_Orlan_Spacesuit

Book reviews
https://www.mpj.one/search/label/books?&max-results=12 

Rendezvous With Rama
 

Technothrillers

You know that feeling with reading novels when your bookmark location is in the second half of the book and you find yourself turning pages faster and faster in order to find what happens next? If your reading interests coincide with mine, the most likely case is that you are reading either science fiction, spy or fast-paced action thrillers, or good and old adventure stories filled with espionage and politics in the background.


Well, that was before. Nowadays, if I wanted all that combined in a single novel, there's a new subgenre called technothrillers, and with some of them, especially with new authors in the self-publishing realm, and on almost all occasions, I found myself turning pages even faster. Three of those great technothrillers you could find are presented in this blog post. The premises are extraordinary, and all of them are borrowed from science fiction: smart robotic nanoparticles enhancing human bodies, evil artificial intelligence operating on Darknet, and one extraordinary idea of teleportation based on time travel.

Let's start with a nanoscaled interface between the human brain and computers. It has always been a holy grail to make this efficient ever since the invention of the first computer. Even now to create this post, I am using the old-fashioned keyboard to type the letters, checking for typos, taking care of the grammar, and rolling the mouse around the table for lots of other commanding purposes. "Interface" by Tony Batton is giving us all the potential outcomes of the system without all those helping gadgets only by using nanoparticles with remote access to everything with a CPU and with the thriller plot that is, in one word, outstanding. I will only add that I touched the icon for the sequel purchase just a couple of moments after I finished the book.


For the next technothriller in line, these three reasons were enough for me to hit the download button: DarkWeb & Net layers of the internet, villain AI, and automated corporations. It was amazing how all this, not so hard to imagine, near future inspired Matthew Mather to create this astonishing novel named "Darknet". Simply put, I felt that all that's happening in this techno adventure was as real as in any ordinary thriller. This reality, in one way or another, is really knocking on our doors, especially the part with automated corporations with no need for humans in roles of CEOs, CMOs, CTOs, and all the other C?Os. The scary part is that we don't even need supreme AI to take over, just advanced automation. The thriller part of the book is as perfect as the premise itself. Enough said.

Last, but not least, comes the boldest sci-fi premise in Douglas E. Richards' "Split Second". While at first it is not immediately comprehensible how time travel can be used for teleportation and then for the entire thriller story, it is quite simple really. I don't really like to spoil the book here, especially since the author kept the details from the reader for a big portion of the pages, but I have to say that it is an ingenious idea. I will just give you a hint to think about it: we are living in a universe with four dimensions by its nature, three spatial ones and time as the fourth. If we move along one dimension, i.e., up and down, we are not really moving left or right or forward or backward. We would be only using one spatial dimension and traveling forward in time. The other two spatial coordinates would stay the same. Similarly, the question from the book was, what if we were able to use only the time dimension and move just a fraction of a second forward or backward in time and NOT use spatial dimensions by doing so? Where exactly would our spatial coordinates be AFTER the time travel? Where would everything else be after our arrival? If you are intrigued, this book is definitely for you.


To summarize this spoiler-less review, even though I liked and enjoyed all the stories the same, the plausibility of the background science fiction is always important to me, and with these three, "Darknet" is maybe something we could witness within our lifespans, and just for that fact, if I had to rate these three technothrillers, it would be my first choice of recommendation. As much as I would love to see something similar to the nano-sized robots floating in our bloodstreams, the "Interface" premise is still going to wait for a better understanding of our own intelligence and brain activity. The wait must also include significant nano-scaling of the CPUs as well. As for the time travel, if you ask me, this might stay in the fiction only for a very long time, perhaps even to stay in the realm of the impossible, but who knows, we might witness one-day time travel of the information data somehow if sending any mass back in time proves to be unfeasible.

Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed all the twists in stories, all the characters and their interactions and development, writing styles, and how everything unfolded at the end of all three novels. A warm recommendation goes without saying.

Books:
http://www.tonybatton.com/interface/
http://matthewmather.com/books/darknet/
http://www.douglaserichards.com/split-second

More thriller reviews:
https://www.mpj.one/2017/04/cotton-alex-will-travis-and-david.html
 

Space Humor

It happened long ago, in the dark ages of CRT monitors, when I first received a short forum message with :-) at the end. I stared at the message for a long minute(s) before giving up on decoding its meaning. It came from a well-respected friend of mine, so I responded with a short reply:

"What!?"

"You have to turn your screen 90 degrees clockwise." The answer came promptly.

My CRT was large and heavy, and it looked way too dangerous to tilt it that way, so after a little brainstorming of the problem, I concluded there's a better way of achieving the same goal.

I tilted my head 90 degrees anticlockwise.

"Aaaaaah!!!" I said promptly, and after realizing the picture, the big smile on my face slowly morphed into loud laughter. So I typed back:

"Wow!"

I didn't have to wait long for the next message:

"LOL!"

"What!?" I quickly copy/pasted my earlier message but realized I was too uninformed about new internet fashion, so I canceled the message and opened a new Netscape window instead, called www.altavista.com, and 'googled' new internet words. Ever since then, LOL has been at the top of my list of favorite acronyms. Along with all those cute ASCII faces. ;-)


In my case, and probably with many people as well, laughter is one of those most powerful cures for everything. The almighty vaccine for all diseases. Especially boredom and poor moodiness. LOL moments somehow come naturally with live social occasions and in movies, but in books they have one extra dimension. I really can't explain why that is. Perhaps funny moments in the written world often come unexpectedly and are more genuine. Take, for instance, Andy Weir's "The Martian." The hilarious parts in the book were genuinely funnier than in the film. At least with me... Well, nevermind that. So, to get to the chase, last month I read three extraordinarily funny books in the realm of science fiction and space exploration. So here they are in this short review, sorted by the count of LOL moments I had during reading. In descending order, of course.

The first one was "Where the Hell is Tesla?" by Rob Dircks. I stumbled on this one by accident, and boy, I am glad I did. Nikola Tesla is one of my favorite men in the history of people, science, and engineering, and here in Serbia, especially during my childhood, Tesla was idealized and always portrayed in a too serious manner. Anyhow, when I saw the title with Tesla playing the major role in the comedy story, I couldn't resist, and I didn't regret a single penny. It was by far the funniest book I read in a while. It had it all: decent science fiction based on cutting-edge scientific theories of the multiverse, the romance and friendship within different storylines, cute aliens, sci-fi battles of enormous proportions, great style of writing, Nikola Tesla in the most entertaining meaning of the word, and of course... Chip. I am not going to spoil the reading for you, but I will tell you this. On one occasion, I almost dropped my Kindle on the hard floor because of one of the strongest LOL moments. Enough said.


The second is "Jazz of Artemis." In the context of today's post, this is how I would name the book if I were Andy Weir. Of course, his new book is not a comedy per se. But it is not "The Martian" as well. However, in the realm of the funny moments, it is a decent sequel. Way better and much funnier. Jazz is... let me find the right word... an extraordinary girl on multiple levels. I enjoyed her adventures fully, and I do hope for the real sequel this time. I mean, with Jazz around, what can go wrong on the Moon? I really hope there will be a movie after this one as well, but not solely because of the entertainment part and all the LOL moments, especially with that Svoboda guy and his ability to manufacture various devices that do or do not belong to ESA blueprints and worksheets.

But seriously, what Andy Weir did with creating a fully functional city on the moon with both working technology and society organization is amazing and also extraordinary. It definitely deserves the motion pictures, and I am sure filming the movie that takes the entire story and action on the moon is another challenge. I am sure Ridley Scott is buzzing his mind with this as we speak.


Finally, and to use the cliché, last but not least comes the good old British humor. Something I grew up with was all the great TV shows like "Monty Python" and "Only Fools and Horses" or short comedy sketches and skits by Dave Allen, Benny Hill, Rowan Atkinson, and others. But in the flashlight of the parody novels, the throne is still with Douglas Adams and his "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". This was the first book I experienced LOL moments with, way before the LOL acronym was ever invented. "The Worst Man on Mars" by Mark Roman and Corben Duke was probably the most similar novel I read in a long while.

This is also a parody, but not really as much as its famous predecessor. This book follows plausible science fiction and doesn't go into wild imagination, like the restaurant at the end of the universe or "42". I really did like many technological backgrounds inside, like artificial intelligence or a space elevator, for example. But the humor with this one comes first, and the robots in their sitcom on Mars are something I do recommend warmly.

:-)

Refs:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25053578-where-the-hell-is-tesla
http://www.andyweirauthor.com/books/artemis-hc
https://www.amazon.com/Worst-Man-Mars-Mark-Roman/dp/1536930970
http://www.milanzivic.com/2013/06/dave-allen.html
https://www.space.com/38725-artemis-andy-weir-author-interview.html