I’ve never been to a ren fair in my life but I can feel it in my bones that this is one of those eyeroll inducing things where a million of people have done it but they all think they’re the first.
I mean it kinda seems like there’s exactly one way to do it. They’re not elaborate costumes by any means, and they’re uniforms so you can’t exactly get creative with it.
I mean it kinda seems like there’s exactly one way to do it. They’re not elaborate costumes by any means, and they’re uniforms so you can’t exactly get creative with it.
Not with the costumes maybe, but with the acting, you definitely can.
Apparently it’s pretty common for ren fair people to wear a starfleet badge hidden somewhere and if this happens pull them aside in character, subtly show the badge and rip into them for violating the prime directive.
Pay and benefits are awesome. After my wife got the list of rules? "Babe. Do NOT take that job."
Late by 30 seconds, fired 3rd time, no exceptions. (This is in the middle of nowhere on the interstate. She would have to show up 40 minutes early to ensure no traffic issues.)
Can’t enter the store before your shift.
Can’t leave the store during your shift.
You must take a particular path to go to the breakroom.
You cannot go outside.
If anyone spots a tat on your flesh? Fired instantly.
There’s more I’m forgetting. This place thinks because of the good pay and benefits that they own you soul.
FYI not every bucees is the size of a department store, although most of the ones they’ve been building along interstates over the past 10-15 years definitely are.
There are plenty, especially near Lake Jackson where they are headquartered, that are the size of a regular gas station.
They sell everything in the middle of nowhere. They make fresh fudge and candies. They sell gas. The bathrooms are always clean. Their logo is an anthropomorphized beaver in a hat. It’s glorious.
As long as we become space faring super survivors, I’m fine with that. Good intentions don’t make rocket fuel for the vroom vroom. We need to vroom some explorers to other places, just in case.
The main problem with colonizing places is the displacement of the people already living there. You'll notice that space is notorious for not having people. It's one of the defining traits of space, really.
As to staying where we are, well. That comes with all sorts of issues. The first of which are big rocks. Then there's gamma ray bursts, and coronal mass ejections, and a host of other potentially life ending things that could hit our planet at any time.
We have all of our eggs in one basket. This is the height of stupidity when we could do something about it.
As to fixing our own planet? Why the fuck do you think we can't also work on that? There are billions of humans, we can surely multitask. Especially since actually living on the moon or Mars or whatnot will be a monumentally hard task in and of itself.
The first moon base will need to be 100% science to figure out some pretty important biology, like is it even possible to maintain a population at 1/6 Earth gravity.
That's a huge question that we don't actually have an answer for.
As to fixing our own planet? Why the fuck do you think we can’t also work on that? There are billions of humans, we can surely multitask. Especially since actually living on the moon or Mars or whatnot will be a monumentally hard task in and of itself.
Then where are those efforts? When will the fossil fuel companies be shuttered, and their CEOs executed for crimes against nature and humanity? When can we trust the leaders of the most powerful nations on Earth to actually start trying to restrain the runaway global temperature increases? We just sailed straight past 2C globally; a full 25 years ahead of schedule.
If we can multitask, I’m sure as fuckin shit not seeing it; and it’s either naiveté you’re speaking from, or downright IFLS-type, bazinga-flavored malice. I don’t care about questions we haven’t asked about space yet.
I care about "how are we going to not fucking die here for the profit of some gaggle of fossil-sucking sociopaths".
Well, I mean that’s a lie. “Good intentions don’t make rocket fuel.” The first rocket that was ever designed was designed specifically to go to space. It was used in WW2 by the Nazis but its creator said “The rocket worked perfectly, but it fell on the wrong planet.” Those good intentions are needed for every step of space exploration. You don’t get to suddenly become a rampant narcissistic, misogynistic, arrogant piece of human garbage the second that you clear the gravity well of your home planet. You hold true to those purposes because they will inform your every decision. If you start doing horrible things in the pursuit of a lofty goal, you corrupt that goal and all actions you take in the future. You will be looking through things in a dirtied, bloodied lens. Or, as someone once put it far better…
“You cannot explain away a wantonly immoral act because you think that it is connected to some higher purpose.” - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Whether you do good things or bad things is who you are. If you start taking terrible actions then you become a terrible person. Or, as the man again once said…
“It’s our morality that defines us. It’s part of the truth of our existence.”
Then there’s the fact that Elon constantly shits on everyone below him. Guess what? There’s a few quotes for that too. Here are my favorites.
“No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another.”
“You know, there are some words I’ve known since I was a schoolboy. “With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.” Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged.”
Or what about this interaction between Worf and Picard?
Picard: We think we’ve come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, is all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again.
Worf: I believed her. I… helped her. I did not see her for what she was.
Picard: Mr. Worf, villains who twirl their moustache are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged.
Worf: I think… after yesterday people will not be so ready to trust her.
Picard: Maybe. But she, or someone like her, will always be with us. Waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness. […] Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we must continually pay.
Now lemme top all this ramble off with one final slightly edited quote to cement my point.
The first duty of every Star Trek fan is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! If you can’t find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don’t deserve to wear that cosplay.
I saw James Cromwell, the actor who portrayed Zefram Cochrane, on a flight into Albuquerque about a decade or so ago. He was wearing a colorful kufi hat, and he’s so god damned tall I could easily see him from like three rows back. I was 99% sure it was him, and when I saw him again picking up his luggage I became 100% sure. He’s a freaking giant.
I have a very strong introvert aspect to myself. I very badly wanted to tell him how much his portrayal of Cochrane influenced my life and my career, but I chickened out. For the record, I am a research scientist who now works in big tech.
I think what I loved about him was his flaws. I especially loved how his self-awareness of the chasm between the person he saw himself to be and the legend that grew around him caused him to freak out and panic. I also really understood his whole self-destructive and self-sabotaging stage. And despite all of that, he won through, and Starfleet was the end product.
I love what you’ve written and I think it speaks to the ethos Roddenberry built into his universe to show us what is possible, but I really loved the idea that it grew from this flawed human before it blossomed.
That’s not to say the vroom vroom person was correct. Quite the opposite. A mirror universe Cochrane reimagined as Elon Musk would have lead to… probably the mirror universe but worse. It was more about the struggle possibly being worth it, despite how you feel about yourself and even if the end is something you can’t even imagine.
I always love that logic … our planet is too dangerous and dying, so we have to leave to make sure we survive
At this point in our evolution … we would ensure our long term survival in our galaxy if we stayed put and maintained our current environment. It’s the only liveable atmosphere, environment and planet that we know of that we can live on and have access to.
How are we going to restart life on Mars where there is no atmosphere or resources when we’re doing such a terrible job maintaining the existing atmosphere and environment we were born into?
I always like burning house metaphors … space exploration to save our species at this point in time is like burning your house down, telling everyone you can’t live there any more and saying that you’re leaving to go live somewhere else where you can decorate a better bedroom. Except your burning house is located in an isolated desert with no shelter for hundreds of miles around.
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