JG Ballard has just passed away. Described by the New York Times suchly: Ballard would eventually be deemed worthy of his own adjective, “Ballardian,” defined by the Collins English Dictionary as “resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in Ballard’s novels & stories, esp. dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes & the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.”

It is always difficult to get a sense of an author from a short passage, but this is from a short story, Voices of Time:

The dome was in darkness, all the windows shuttered, but the generator still hummed in the X-ray theatre. Kaldren stepped through the entrance and switched on the lights. In the theatre he touched the grilles of the generator, felt the warm cylinder of the beryllium end-window. The circular target table was revolving slowly, set at 1 r.p.m., a steel restraining chair shackled to it hastily. Grouped in a semi-cicle a few feet away were most of the tanks and cages, piled on top of each other haphazardly. In one of them was the enormous squid-like plant had almost managed to climb from it vivarium. Its long translucent tendrils clung to the end of the tank, but it body had burst into a jellified pool of globular mucilage. In another an enormous spider had trapped itself in its own web, hung helplessly in the centre of a huge three dimensional maze of phosphorescing thread, twitching spasmodically.

All the experimental plants and animals had died. The chimp lay on its back among the remains of the hutch, the helmet forward over its eyes. Kaldren watched it for a moment, then sat down on the desk and picked up the phone.

While he dialed the number he noticed a film reel lying on the blotter. For a moment, he stared at the label, then slid the reel into his pocket beside the tape.

After he had spoken to the police he turned down the lights and went out to the car, drove off slowly down the drive.

When he reached the summer house the early sunlight was breaking across the ribbon-like balconies and terraces. He took the lift to the penthouse, made his way through into the museum. One by one he opened the shutters and let the sunlight play over the exhibits. Then he pulled the a chair over to a side window, sat and stared up at the light pouring through into the room.

Two or three hours later he heard Coma outside, calling up to him. After half an hour she went away, but a little later a second voice appeared and shouted up at Kaldren. He left his chair and closed all the shutters overlooking the front courtyard, and eventually he was left undisturbed.

Kaldren returned to his seat and lay back quietly, his eyes gazing across the line of exhibits. Half asleep, periodically he leaned up and adjusted the flow of light through the shutter, thinking to himself, as he would do in the coming months of Powers and his strange mandala, and of the seven and their journey to the white gardens of the moon, and the blue people who had come from Orion and spoken in poetry to them of the ancient beautiful worlds beneath golden suns in the island of galaxies, vanished for ever now in the myriad deaths of the cosmos.

JG Ballard, The Voices of Time, 1960.

He may not be long as the Doctor, but at least he has a sense of humour.

Pharyngula is a science blog by PZ Myers, and he does not take much liking to the suggestion that Alzheimer’s is caused by extraterrestrials.

I can see why a scientist would not be a great fan of the article:

Dr. Salla specifically documents Manipulative Extraterrestrials that use mind control weapons technologies, that interfere with human cognitive functions. Could Alzheimer’s be a side effect of an alleged interference in human cognitive functions?

…Dr. Salla, Dr. Lash, and other learned researchers suggest that such human conditions as Alzheimer’s and Dementia may be appreciated by becoming aware of Manipulative Extraterrestrial interference against human free will.

…The Bible itself in pre-translated forms, as presented by Biblical scholars, actually contains specific warnings against these apparent Manipulative Extraterrestrials, who have apparently sought to interfere in human cognitive/neurological processes.

It would appear that aliens are “Archons” are manipulating our minds, causing diseases and we were warned in the bible before the aliens manipulated our minds to remove the references in later bibles.

Where are these ideas coming from? Searching on the name Dr John Singh turns up another interesting article, also on the website of “The Canadian” this one entitled Totalitarianism as a Manipulative Extraterrestrial Ruse:

…research on the Gnostics, suggests that Manipulative Extraterrestrials called “archons” as “trojan horses”, seek to infiltrate human institutions. David Icke’s testimony inspires consideration on whether signs of activity, that is voided on basic human decency do not suggest the work of an alien intruder, operating in a mimicked human form, using the simple technology of virtual reality…Adolf Hitler, another dictator that ruled over Nazi Germany, in the same era of Joseph Stalin, has been documented as acting as an operative of Manipulative Extraterrestrials, in the perpetration of Crimes Against Humanity, which include the Holocaust. Adolf Hilter has been historically documented as being a member of the UFO oriented Thule society, before his rise to power.

The David Icke reference is an interesting one, but for the moment continuing with the current path the presentation of these articles on a seemingly mainstream paper’s website does seem a bit funny. Admittedly I haven’t heard of it, but I have heard of the Australian, and this seems comparable? Looking at the front page, the first article is about Obama, uh oh….

Hitler became infamous for talking “hope” and peace through “non-aggression packs”, as he prepared for the violence of invasion and “Blitzkrieg” (lightening war).

“Hitler? Are you kidding me?” you might ask. But, who in Germany during the 1930’s in a time of sought democratic renewal, would have predicted the that Germany would start a World War, under a dictatorial government, that would seek to use concentration camps? “Concentration camps? We don’t have those.” Well, that’s not what the evidence suggests, according to investigative journalists that notably include Alex Jones. Mr. Jones and others allege such camps are ready and waiting to accept “designated occupants”

I should note that the article is also written by Dr John Singh. I suddenly realise we are in woo-woo territory. When you scroll down the articles, an awful lot of them seem to involve extraterrestrials:

Manipulative extraterrestrials and mind control

Capitalism: An alien ideology from who were as human being [sic]

Hurricanes and the Bermuda Triangle

Ethical Extraterrestrials and the maturation of the galactic culture

Florida: UFO’s, extraterrestials and the parachutist

(I would also note a number of articles about transgender issues. Go figure).

So we are talking about a UFO website with links to Gnosticism and thus to broader Conspiracy Theory issues. Which provides the link to David Icke, who, on googling, turns out to be a leading proponent of conspiracy theories. From his wikipedia article:

At the heart of Icke’s theories is the view that the world is ruled by a secret group referred to as the “Global Elite” or “Illuminati,” which he has linked to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, while not denying that these are an anti-semitic hoax. In 1999, he published The Biggest Secret, in which he wrote that the Illuminati are a race of reptilian humanoids known as the Babylonian Brotherhood, and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie.

This is great, you want your conspiracy theories Big and Beautiful. The Jews running the world was a bit simple, and the ET’s going around re-writting the bible and giving us all headaches is not really up there. But George Bush and the Queen being secret reptilian humanoids, now that is a conspiracy theory you can love. We are in Dr who territory with that one.

I always kind of knew these theories were out there, but to see them all out there so blatantly makes you pause. Kind of like running bare foot into bindies in the grass and having to back out very slowly. In this particular case there is also a big turd with the bindies:

David Icke is coming to Melbourne in April 2009! Truth Movement Australia is putting on an event- you can book tickets now!

I was listening to the In Our Times episode on vitalism, and suddenly the story of Frankenstein’s monster make more sense.

If you remember Dr Frankenstein creates a creature by animated a body through the use of electricity.

As outlined in the radio program, vitalism dealt with the ‘spark of life’ the thing that gave a living human life, the thing absent from the dead. As knowledge and science advanced in the 19th century electricity came to be seen as a candidate for this ‘spark of life’. For example one scientist was able to make a dead frog legs twitch by running electricity through them.

Matthew Yglesias posted on the lack of ‘fighters’ in Star Trek:

The Imperial Star Destroyer of the Star Wars universe is a hybrid battleship/aircraft carrier, capable (according to Wikipedia) of carrying 72 TIE fighters plus auxiliaries, but also capable of fighting it out ship-to-ship.

All of this makes me wonder why the ships in Star Trek are so clearly cruisers and battleships, rather than aircraft carriers. As far as I can tell, no race in the series employs vessels that act as motherships to large numbers of fighters.

Clearly this is a question that calls for a made-up answer. So what I would say is that most likely in the Star Trek universe it’s not technologically feasible to equip a craft smaller than a Defiant-class starship with deflector shields. You could attribute that to the physics of the deflector fields themselves, or the need for a large power supply, or what have you. Either way, the upshot is that piloting a small craft in battle would be tantamount to suicide.

In sympathy with Matt’s call for imaginary answers, I think this issue requires serious consideration. However, i think the real question is why the Imperial Star Destroyers in Stars Wars had fighters at all.

The use of a large mother-ship with smaller fighters attached is an obvious homage to the aircraft carriers of World War Two, particularly the Pacific Theatre of the war where they were a decisive component of the American forces.

These aircraft carriers were a combination of a mother-ship with associated fighters. But it was the nature of the medium that made this work, that is the fighting was occurring a the interface of water and air. It allows the combination of water-based large, heavy, slow ships with air-based light, fast fighters.

You don’t see this occurring in other aspects of earth-side modern (or world war two) warfare. You don’t see tanks mother-ships with little fighter tanks, or long range bombers with little fighters tucked inside them.

This is also relevant the the space medium of the Imperial Star Destroyers. Both the ISD and the fighters travel through the same medium and would seem to be little reason to create separate types of space craft (that is, it is going to be more effective to make big ships – or small – but once you know that your best strategy is to make as many of those as possible).

So the question for Star wars, and Battlestar Galactica, is why have fighters at all?