Saturday, February 23, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
John Harrison is not Khan: Stardates are dumb
Is Benedict
Cumberbatch’s John Harrison a version of Ricardo Montalbán’s Khan Noonien
Singh? Given the amount of internet
speculation related to this question I thought someone would take the time to
clearly answer it. Unfortunately, no one
has done so, and I'm bored enough to take on the job. So, let's dig in. First, who is Khan?
Introduced
in the episode “Space Seed”, Khan is a product of human eugenics who ruled over
a quarter of Earth during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. Placed in suspended animation sometime during /
after those wars, he is awakened by the crew of the
Given that
information, is it possible, within Star Trek canon, for John Harrison to be
Khan Noonien Singh? The possibility
seems to rely on the alternate universe aspect of Abrams’ films, and the degree
to which the Narada’s trip through time impacted the life of Khan. Unfortunately, given the completely shitty
non-organizational non-structure of temporal events within the Star Trek
universe, it is difficult to discern an exact answer to this question.
For
starters, the original series seems to have no clear articulation of when it
takes place. These discrepancies are
laid out on the Star Trek timeline wikipedia page. In the episode "Space Seed" Kahn is
said to have been in suspended animation for two centuries since the
1990s. This would mean the episode
occurs sometime around 2190. However, in
the episode "Miri" we learned that 1960 was 300 years ago, so the events
of that episode occur in roughly 2260.
While "Space Seed" and "Miri" occur at different
times, it seems strange to think that the episodes occur 100 years apart, with
the same crew. So, to begin, we don't
know exactly when the original series takes place, and most of the provided
dates contradict other dates.
If we ignore the non-Khan events from the series, there are still temporal problems. The script for "Space Seed" indicates that prior to boarding Khan's ship Kirk states, "Captain's log, stardate 3141.9". The wikipedia page for Khan indicates that this stardate corresponds to the year 2267. However, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, happens 15 after "Space Seed", with a provided date of 2222. 2222 is not 15 years after 2267. Also, the script for Wrath of Khan indicates that the opening lines from the film place it on "stardate eighty-one-thirty point three." I'm not sure how 8130.3 could be 15 years after 3141.9.
Tossing
temporal information from Star Trek 2009 into the mix just fucks things up even
more. When Captain Robau is taken aboard
the Narada, he informs Nero that the current stardate is " twenty-two
thirty-three zero four". For the
new films, the format for stardates was revised: "According to Roberto Orci, stardates were revised again for the 2009 film so that the first four digits correspond to the year, while the remainder was intended to stand for the day of the year". So, the temporal disruption at the beginning
of Star Trek 2009 takes place in 2233.
This is 34 years before the given date for "Space Seed" and
eleven years after the events of Wrath of Khan!
To put all
of that into a handy-dandy list:
Space Seed
Stardate: 3141.9
Year: 2267
Wrath of Khan (15 years after Space Seed)
Stardate: 8130.3
Year: 2222
Star Trek
2009 opening sequence, pre-Kirk birth
Stardate: 2233.04
Year: 2233
Aside: Someone needs to explain to me how Star Trek
can be extolled as a paragon of sci-fi quality given it's complete inability to
clearly, and consistently, articulate what the fuck day it is.
But I digress.
Let's
pretend that the stardate issue is not a problem, and somehow all those numbers
play nicely together. Even then, we have
to deal with the semi-fact that Khan was placed in suspended animation in the
late 1990s. That act would not have been
influenced by the time-travel events of the Narada, given that temporal
disruptions impact linear forward progressions of time, and have no regressive
impact. [citation needed] So, even if Abrams wants to portray John
Harrison as an alternate-universe Khan Noonien Singh, we would have to ask how
the eugenically engineered Indian Khan Noonien Singh put into suspended
animation in 1990 was alternate-timelined into John Harrison by the events of
the Narada.
It seems
strange to suggest that Ricardo Montalbán was floating around in suspended
animation, some Romulans went back in time, and that transformed him into
Benedict Cumberbatch.
While I
really want to end on that joke, there's another bit of information I am
obligated to include.
In the
original plot treatment for "Space Seed", the character of Khan was
named Harold Erricsen. The
name was changed in the first script to John Ericssen. That name has a striking resemblance to John
Harrison, with respect to both the first name and the ____son surname. I worry this resemblance is not accidental. It seems likely that the similarity of name
is meant to indicate some alternate-timeline relationship, and we're in for a
very strange homage wherein our beloved "KHAAAAAAAN!!!!" is
romulan-time-travel-morphed into "JOOOOOOOOOHN!!"
The question is, again, how Abrams can turn Ricardo Montalbán into Benedict
Cumberbatch by means of some Romulans going back in time to a
date 34 years before "Space Seed" and eleven years after the events
of Wrath of Khan. I'll grant that
"Time travel" and "Wizard did it" can answer a lot of
questions. But I don't think it's enough
to do this:
Posted by _J_ at 11:59 PM 2 comments
Diablo 3 to Consoles on PS3 & PS4
Blizzard re-enters console market with Diablo III
Blizzard Entertainment's SVP of story and franchise development Chris Metzen said his company is revisiting its console game development roots and bringing Diablo III to both the PlayStation 3 and the just-announced PlayStation 4.
Blizzard and Sony have entered a strategic partnership through which we will take over the world," said Metzen. Diablo III released on PC in spring 2012.
It's been well over a decade since Blizzard released a commercial game for consoles. Metzen noted Blizzard's console development background and the time was right to revisit the space. "The trick has always been 'how'... how do we do it," he said.
Blizzard has made no secret that it was looking at a possible console version of Diablo III, for instance posting public job ads for Diablo III console game designers.
The developer of World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo has made the PC its focus for many years. Naturally, Blizzard's PC games are designed around the mouse, keyboard and desktop display setup, which can be difficult to translate to a couch-and-TV living room experience.
Metzen said Blizzard has "painstakingly" customized the control scheme, offering direct control over the Diablo III avatar. The game will also support four-player, full-screen co-op play.
Posted by _J_ at 9:49 PM 0 comments
Labels: diablo III