Nine months ago, Devon discovered that humans were not alone in the universe and his family was killed for it. He mourned for his family alone. Devon had been altered but faced impossible odds as he was chased around the world by other world forces. Devon’s growing abilities were no match for these unseen creatures and he did the only sensible thing he could do, run. Devon ran from Them. He hid from Them, but he would never escape.
He returned returned home. In the debris and rain soaked rubble that was once his home, he found a half burnt stuffed butterfly. It had belonged to his one year old daughter Brianna, it was all that remained. Devon attached the butterfly to his backpack.
The Altered
By MG Hardie
The System, which, generally, refers to the governments across the world, is to blame…for…Them! And everything that happened thereafter! Coming from a second, more advanced earth, Them came to attack and destroy through any, seemingly, natural catastrophe that ultimately will end this earth. Why? Because The System had already done it to most of theirs by using nuclear bombs that blasted beyond and into another dimension where the majority of people were killed instantly and the radiation slowly destroying the rest, as well as animals and vegetation.
Devon has been murdered, altered by Them and has even met with Prime the leader of Them. Devon had lost his family…Prime, more or less, responded, now you know how we feel…
With a mixture of vengeance, empathy and sympathy, Devon began to follow after them, wherever there was a crisis, to try to save, as well as work to rid the earth of Them. Soon he realized, though altered, he still was not enough to fight back. He went to two of his old friends, one a lover, and shared what had happened, provided the means by which they, too, would be altered, and began their training…
Joshua had been saved from Them by Devon. “Will Power” had been coming into his mind at night… motivating him with what they wanted him to do…
Devon could see…Them…and he talked to them to free his mind of what they’d planted. Joshua is an interesting character that hooked into the stories and adventure of what Devon was doing…but he wanted to use violence in the process…Devon slowly was weaning his thoughts into more productive thinking. Later, he did the same activities with Gina.
This is a more slow-paced novel, where training and learning to deal with the future was uppermost in Devon’s mind…While, he also was moving across the world helping wherever a tornado or a hurricane had visited. Later, both of his friends did the same in local areas.
Devon had also been seeking out “rifts” that connected the two earths. He was slowly acclimating himself, and later, the others, to move from one earth to another… What he saw was devastating and yet wondrous and beautiful in so many ways.
Hardie presents many conceptual electronic and scientific issues that are amazing or beyond the norm for those who aren’t inventive… Either way, many are cool ideas and with the three together, they come up with exciting ways to keep working to fight Them… At the same time, Devon has never given up hoping to convince Prime that they are serious about working together…
Until, he is proven wrong…
~~~
Like Happens 
January 11, 2021
The Pandalorian STD
Posted by MG under African American, America, art, black life, media, TV Show | Tags: baby yoda, cbs, cobra kai, commentary, Disney, disney plus, mandalorian, netflix, Review, social media, star trek, star trek discovery, Streaming |Leave a Comment
Over the holidays, I fell behind on my Star Trek Discovery episode watching. I put on an episode and a few members of my family, none of them had watched the previous seasons, sat down to watch with me. And guess what they enjoyed it…especially the women.
And that’s when I saw it… no not the Easter eggs… it.
These shows weren’t made for fans, they were made for the unaffiliated, a new generation of consumers and streamers. The studios use the installed fan base to promote the shows but the shows aren’t for them. They throw in Easter eggs, plot points, pandering and references to feed the fans and to string them along.
This method has been successful with shows such as, the The Mandolarian and of course with Cobra Kai…the later is designed to be that way. This studio philosophy also happened to Start Trek Discovery, but not initially. Initially the studio used a well known gender movement to move the show.
You see if an unaffiliated (casual viewer) watched a few episodes of the first season of STD with subtitled Klingon, two ladies beating up a crew of black monsters and discussion of how a spore drive works…they would have been completely lost. However, Star Trek: Discovery’s third season launched with a lower access point for the causal view, the viewer who doesn’t care about cannon, the who won’t say “Hey they can’t do that” or “They did this same episode in blah…blah…” At the end of the 2nd season Michael Burnham doesn’t even need a space ship to fly through space anymore…go figure.
On top of this the studios have taken the time and spent the advertising dollars to use social media to paint legitimate complainers as man-babies, whiners, etc… instead of just creating better stories and scripts. The new watchers and original fans mingle on social media pages filling in plot holes, arguing about how many times people will cry this episode and why this character is better than a long dead one… Honestly the commenters on social media are working harder than the show writers.
Most fans become defensive and assume someone is attacking their character or intelligence whenever the only product they have is criticized. Afraid that criticizing these products in anyway will decrease the enjoyment. So fans resort to lying to ourselves to make the experience better…and how we feel doesn’t require logic or rules. And just when you think the studios will never hire directors and producers who actually like the original product, a five minute CGI cameo appearance stirs a rare moments of reconciliation of a divided and disheartening fan base and generates more goodwill than a billion dollar movie trilogy.
OG Fans of Star Wars, Star Trek and The Karate Kid should be sadden that their kind, the kind that created the flash point in the first place is being treated this way, but you also have to recognize that these studios believe that real fans won’t be the pushers of and will limit what they can do with their IP. There is no bigger waste of time than criticizing art, but these TV shows are more product than anything else.
If the studio released a product that doesn’t suit the fans, the fans say it’s a flop and cause the studio all kind of turmoil. If the product was a success, they would have to make more in the same vain and cost controls would become outrageous (see Robert Downey Jr. Ironman’s Salary). Studios have learned that causing division drives social media and that division generates social media topics, articles and hate videos.
These shows tick gender and agenda box after box, and fans and bored streamers will fight show after show, spin off after spinoff because deep down inside the fan knows the truth– THIS IS ALL THEY HAVE—and that’s better than having nothing. Yes, they are using you and you aren’t going to just stop streaming and arguing on social media…so the studios have you by the proverbial space balls.
Becoming Midnight