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Battletech: Homebrew Simultaneous Movement Rules

Friday, August 2nd, 2019

Back when dot matrix was the printer of choice and Windows 98 was the best option for an OS, I came up with a set of rules for simultaneous movement in Battletech. The regular miniatures game was fun, but I had gotten into flight simulators on my computer and I felt the experience could be better. What I came up with added some complexity to the game, but it also became the preferred rule-set among my friends.

My original rules have been lost to the vortex of forgotten file formats. What I present here is what I remember of them with a few modifications based on experience, new ideas from other games, and “this makes more sense” moments during my recollections.

I haven’t had a chance to read the latest Battletech rules, but if the Harebrained Schemes computer game represents them well, it shouldn’t be hard to adapt what I am presenting to them.

Step 1: Planning Phase

I introduced a turn record sheet. It had columns for starting hex, movement type, hexes moved, ending hex, and ending heat. The starting hex may seem redundant after the first turn, but melee combat can change a mech’s position before the end of the turn.

Each side was given a few minutes to plan their movement. In a multiple lance situation, if you want to simulate command structure, the unit commander can give orders to the lance commanders who work with their lance-mates to figure out a way to execute those orders.

Since both sides are using the same map, it is best to do as much calculating in your imagination as possible. You don’t want to be giving too much about your tactics away.

Movement type is important for determining how many movement points a mech has as well as movement penalties during combat. Hexes moved helps determine all mechs’ movement as well as defensive targeting modifiers.

Step 2: Movement Phase

Mechs move based on weight class. The heaviest mechs move first. This reflects the relative agility of lighter mechs. I developed these rules after the Mechwarrior RPG came out. Players get one opportunity during the movement phase to make a tactics roll to change their plan once movement has started. They have to keep to their movement type.

First determine initiative. The side with the winning initiative decides if they want to move the first mech or the last one for all of the weight classes. One decision applies to all of the mechs.

The heaviest weight class on the board moves first based on initiative. If there are an uneven number of mechs in a class, work out a ratio so that initiative is kept. For example: the side with initiative wants to move the last mech and has two mechs of a certain wight class to the other side’s four. The side without initiative moves two mechs before the side with initiative moves one.

As another example: the side with initiative wants to move first and has three mechs to their opponent’s two. The side with initiative moves two mechs, their opponent moves one, then each side moves one until all the mechs of that weight class have moved one hex.

This continues until all the mechs in the weight class have moved one hex. All movement points spent in hex (facing changes, terrain modifiers, etc.) are spent at this time. This means a mech will be facing its direction of travel before moving into the next hex.

The next heaviest weight class moves the same way, then the next heaviest, until finally the light mechs move. Then movement goes back to the top with each mech moving just one hex.

It is likely that some mechs will use up all their hexes before others do. Once it has moved into its last hex, its movement has stopped. The other mechs continue as normal. This could break initiative. If only one side has light mechs, they will always be moving the last mech.

As I mentioned earlier, each pilot has one opportunity during a turn to make a tactics roll to change their planned movement. The first movement point change is free. Each one after the first they intend to change adds a +1 to the difficulty roll. For example: a pilot wants to eliminate the last planned facing change and continue in a straight line for two hexes instead of one. They only have to make a normal difficulty tactics roll. If the pilot decides not to make a facing change and as a result not make an elevation change, the tactics roll gets a +1 difficulty modifier.

Step 2B: Mistakes

A mechwarrior planned out their movement and as they make the moves they realize they don’t have enough movement points to reach their declared last hex. They have to make a piloting roll with a penalty based on the number of movement points they miscalculated On a successful roll they stop in the last hex they could legally enter. Any unused movement points are lost. If they fail the piloting roll then they skid based on their velocity and direction of travel before any facing changes may have happened. This could result in a fall or damage from charging a terrain feature.

Step 3: Reaction Fire

This is something I borrowed from the sadly maligned Battletroops game.

Mechwarriors can decide to spend movement points setting up a reactionary arc of fire. Setting up reaction fire ends the mech’s movement.

Even though the mech is not moving, setting up and widening the reaction arc counts as hex movement for the purposes of plotted movement. Also, since the mech has stopped moving, any mistakes made calculating movement point requirements simply means an arc is not set up or widened properly.

The first movement point sets up an arc through the hex-side the mech is facing. The next movement point adds the hex-side to the left or right of the first. A third movement point adds the hex-side to the left or right of either of the previous two. If the final three hex-sides do not match the initial forward arc of the mech, it is considered to have done a torso twist.

Any enemy mechs moving through that arc can be fired upon using any weapon that has the range to reach them. The firing mech’s movement type and the targeted mech’s total planned number of moved hexes count towards determining the gunnery target number. This is the only time weapons can be fired during movement. Any damage is applied immediately. This damage can potentially disrupt the target’s movement.

Weapons can only be fired once during a turn. Any unfired weapons can be fired at a second mech moving through the firing arc. Secondary target penalties apply. Any weapons not used during reaction fir can be used during the regular fire phase. The secondary fire rules still apply. If only one mech was targeted during reaction fire, a fresh mech can be targeted as a secondary target during the fire phase. If two mechs were targeted during reaction fire, then any weapons held for the fire phase must target one of those mechs.

The turn after a mechwarrior sets up a reaction fire arc, they can maintain that arc or expand it to any three consecutive hex sides at no cost so long as they do not move. One facing change is allowed for free. Any other movement destroys the established reactionary arc and it must be started again. Already established reactionary arcs exist at the beginning of the turn. Reactionary fire can only be made against mechs that move in some way. This includes facing changes.

Step 4: Melee Combat

Kicking and punching occur after the fire phase as normal. Charge and Death From Above attacks can only happen as accidents or unplanned opportunities

Any time two or more mechs end a step in the same hex there is a chance for a collision. Unless the conflicting hex is being used for landing, jumping mechs only risk a collision with other vehicles. All involved mechs make unmodified piloting rolls. If they succeed they can choose to react to this situation. If they fail they at the mercy of the other player or fate.

If all involved mechwarriors failed their piloting roll, then they all automatically make charging attacks against each other. Airborne mechs that are successfully charged (intentionally or accidentally) take damage from a level three fall (assuming they are over level zero terrain) and end their movement prone in the last hex they occupied before the conflicting hex.

Any mechwarrior that succeeds can chose to make an appropriate physical attack (charge or DFA) or they can choose to avoid contact. If more than one mech is involved, an attacker must chose which mech to target. If the attack is successful, the untargeted mechs are subject to being pushed.

If two mechs decide to charge each other, the charges are automatically successful. If one chooses to dodge, the pilot makes a piloting roll. If successful, the charge attack is automatically dodged. If the pilot is dodging more than one charge attack, a +1 modifier is added to the difficulty for each additional attacker.

If the dodge is not successful, the attacking mechwarrior still has to make a normal charging attack. If more than two mechs are involved and only one chose to dodge, if the dodge is successful then the two attacking mechs charge each other.

Damage from mid route collisions happens immediately and will end movement for any mechs that fall. Mechs that remain upright can continue their movement as normal. Charging attacks in the last hex of DFA attacks are resolved during the melee attack phase as normal.

If the collisions happen during a jump, any mech that was not the recipient of a charge attack can continue their movement as normal.

Death From Above attacks can only happen if a jumping mech and a ground based mech end their movement in the same hex. A jumping mechwarrior that has not already used their tactics roll, can use it to set up a DFA attack provided they have enough movement points to do so.

If two or more mechs using any movement type will end their movement in the same hex there are two options. First, an unused tactics roll can be used to end movement in a different hex. If this results in a collision also, follow the collision rules above. The other option is one or more mechwarriors may chose to initiate a charge attack. Resolve this normally.

This ends simultaneous movement. The remainder of the turn happens normally.

Variant Option

While it can be done with the regular rules, a double-blind setup works especially well with simultaneous movement. There is a game master/referee who controls the main map board. Each side has identical maps, but they only have their pieces on the board until the enemy reveals themselves in some way. Once the sides are revealed to each other, planning is done on the faction maps, but movement is plotted on the main map. This adds a powerful fog of war element to the game.

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Filling in the Blanks

Friday, July 26th, 2019

In the early days of the Internet, one of my Dungeon Masters did something innovative. He had one of us take notes which he used to email us a summary of that session. We had details about what happened, XP summaries, wound summaries, and a list of the treasure found.

I’m sure session summaries are fairly common to most tabletop RPG sessions now. If you’re not using them, they can really help the experience in several ways.

First, I hold off on sending a summary out until a few days before we are scheduled to play again. This serves as a reminder that we are playing and it brings the players back to where their characters are paused in the adventure. This is especially helpful if there is a large gap between sessions.

The summary also gives me an opportunity to provide any information I might have forgotten to mention while we were playing, to flesh out details (especially useful if I’m working out an encounter on the fly), or to retcon details to better suit the narrative I’m developing. With respect to that last point, I don’t make major changes, just ones that help put past or future events into context. For example, maybe a guard cries out an alarm as the fighter cuts him down even though that wasn’t mentioned during play.

Lastly, these summaries help me remember details about what happened as the campaign moves forward. I might be looking for something to do for the next encounter, review my summaries and remember that a minor villain managed to run away from a fight sometime last year. Time for her to make a reappearance with vengeance on her mind.

One of the things I like most about being a Game Master is the ability to tell a story. But this also provides me with my biggest frustration. I put time and effort into building an encounter. I know how it fits into the bigger picture. I know why an enemy is doing what they are doing. However, for the players these encounters are usually just stops along the plot path. They might figure out some of the details, but they never get the whole story.

That’s what makes other narrative styles, such as books or film, so engaging. The audience can be let in on information that characters would never get.

Recently I stumbled upon a way to give the players this information without giving away the whole plot, and it involves session summaries.

The party in my current D&D campaign are trying to build up to starting a civil war. They are looking for allies in the upcoming struggle. They happened across the Druids of the North. The druids were concerned about recent events which were the reason the party wanted to overthrow the current government. However, the Druids wanted to be sure the party’s intentions weren’t at odds with their own. They gave the party a task.

The fire giants and frost giants had gone to war. While the Druids would normally stay out of the conflict, the collateral damage from the war was having a serious impact of the lands and creatures they swore to protect. The Druids tasked the party with finding the cause of, and hopefully a way to end the war.

The players were able to discover that the fire giants were wrongfully accused of stealing a holy artifact from the frost giants. In retaliation the frost giants kidnapped the fire giant king’s daughter. The players were able to figure out through divination magic that the real culprit was a cloud giant.

The party made their way to the cloud giant city and began making inquiries, a little too obviously. The cloud giant got word and sent his henchmen to ambush the party.

I built an interesting group of henchmen. Each had their own reasons for working for the cloud giant. None was a cookie cutter character. The ambush happened. The party was victorious. All the backstory I had worked out faded into nothingness.

This is where I used the session summary to make my hard work as interesting for my players as it was for me. I told the summary from the point of view of the ambushers. I began with the cloud giant giving his henchmen their orders. I showed how the henchmen were connected to the tiefling rogue that set up the party. I was able to show that the cloud giant operated a museum and that the frost giant relic was taken to be part of the collection. I was able to explain who each of the henchmen were, and touch on why they were doing what they did. I was also able to show how each companion’s death impacted the survivors among the henchmen.

My players loved it. They told me it was one of the best summaries I ever gave them.

I’ve used that technique a few times since then. I don’t make every summary about the villains. It only happens enough to let the players in on information their characters would never get.

If you like to use summaries to keep your players up to date, I would recommend shifting the point of view once in a while. It helps give your world life and lets you tell more of the story.

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You Should Do Some Homework Before Getting Into Marvel’s Inhumans

Friday, September 1st, 2017

Patrick Gleason and I were able to check out the Imax presentation of Marvel’s Inhumans last night. Everyone is wondering if it’s worth tuning in for. My answer is that it depends on how into the MCU and Marvel’s comics you are.

 

I think someone who is starting without any background knowledge is going to find themselves lost pretty quickly. If you’ve been following Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. you’ll understand how Inhumans fit into the wider MCU. Marvel’s Inhumans references events from the season two finale of AoS.

 

If you don’t know anything about the Inhumans in the comics, you might feel lost with the television show. “Who are these characters and why should I care about them,” is not really dealt with in the first two episodes. Iwan Rheon’s Maximus is the most interesting of the main characters. His motivations are clear and sympathetic. It’s only when he channels Ramsay Bolton that we get a sense that he’s the villain.

 

Anson Mount does a good job of portraying Black Bolt. It must be a real challenge to portray a character that won’t talk. He has a regal bearing, but you can tell that he prefers to be kind and peaceful rather than cruel and violent. However, his answer to Maximus’ concerns is always “Trust your king”, but the audience never gets a sense of what Black Bolt might be planning to address those concerns. We certainly get to see why Maximus’ concerns are valid.

 

I don’t think Serinda Swan’s Medusa lives up to my expectations from the comics, though I don’t think it’s the actor’s fault. In the comics Black Bolt and Medusa are yin and yang. He’s silent and stoic. She’s vibrant and emotional. First impressions are always a question of who is really ruling Attilan. As we get to know the characters we understand that the two of them are so in sync that it’s obvious that Medusa is accurately representing Black Bolt.

 

In the television show, Medusa is regal, as she should be, but she is not as expressive as her comic book counterpart. In all the images of her we see from the show she is standing straight and stiff. Even her hair hangs straight. In the comics her presentation is always dynamic. She stands in power poses. Her hair is always in motion like the writhing snakes of her namesake. I understand the limitations of technology and budget, but we never see that dynamism from Medusa until after the coup and her hair is neutralized.

 

Karnak, played by Ken Leung, is also different from his comics counterpart. In the comics Karnak is able to find the weakness in any object or plan. In the show he is able to analyze a situation in an instant, and we get nifty CGI graphics to show this. I like this change to his abilities, but it does open some plot holes. The coup does not come as a surprise to him, but the extent of it does. Karnak should be the instigator of the royal family’s escape. Instead he efficiently adapts to the events as they unfold without activating any of the counters he should have had prepared.

 

Crystal is an enigma to me in the show just like she is in the comics. I never understood her powers or why she’s there. In the comics she always seems to be the proxy for the audience, giving us a chance to witness the events unfolding. In the show she is blasé about her royal duties and impulsive like a child. I hope Isabelle Cornish can make her a more interesting character.

 

Eme Ikwuakor’s Gorgon relies on his physical power too much for the role he has in the royal court. His demonstrations of his strategy and tactics explains why Maximus was so successful.

 

When Patrick and I left the theatre and discussed our thoughts on the show, we had to constantly remind ourselves that we had just watched the first two episodes of a television series, not a movie. The unanswered hints of plot threads and glaring questions are okay. Most of them should be addressed in the future. Like any series, there will be season one growing pains.

 

Hopefully this show will have a stronger connection to AoS than a throw-away line of dialogue. Daisy Johnson is an Inhuman. Events from the two shows need to influence each other. Was Jiaying, Daisy’s mother, and her group known to or working with Attilan? Why is it in AoS humans are killed by the terrigen mist, but in Attilan the mist either gives powers or leaves a person as an ordinary human. Do the residents of Attlian understand their connection to the Kree? How will Black Bolt and Maximus handle the growing number of powered Inhumans on Earth?

 

As a complete aside, I have to wonder if Marvel is ever going to make use of the Eternals and Deviants. Inhumans do work as surrogate mutants, and they do explain the existence of metahumans, but the Deviants could do this without having to have terrigen contaminate the water. The Celestials and Thanos have already been introduced to the MCU, so the groundwork exists. I would love to see any of the Marvel shows reveal that there has been a secret war going on since before humans became civilized.

 

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I Liked Captain America: Civil War But…

Wednesday, May 25th, 2016

To start off, I think Captain America: Civil War was a great movie. I think the Captain America trilogy will be the benchmark all other MCU series will be measured against. However, now that I have had some time to think about the movie, there were several moments that seemed out of place with respect to the MCU as a whole.

Needless to say, everything from this point on will be **SPOILERS**. You’ve been warned.

Ant-Man

CA:CW invalidates the Ant-Man movie. Think back to the plot of that movie. It can be summed up as, “Henry Pym will go to extreme lengths to keep his shrinking technology out of the hands of anyone he cannot control including S.H.I.E.L.D. and the United States government.”

As I sat in the theatre during CA:CW and saw Scott Lang in a cell on the Raft, wearing his prison blues, all I could think was, “Won’t Pym be happy the government finally has their hands on the suit.” Ant-Man and Black Panther’s suits were the only technologies in the film that the government did not have some sort of control over. We know they wanted Henry Pym’s secrets. There is no way Secretary of State Ross did not ask Tony Stark to figure out the suit’s technology, and there is no way Stark would have refused. Even if Stark didn’t have the time to examine the suit, he would have taken samples of the Pym particle and gotten some techie to get as much data from the suit’s design as possible.

Secretary of State “Thunderbolt” Ross

It would be fair to say that General Ross was a man obsessed in The Incredible Hulk. Ross was obsessed with the Super Soldier Program. That was why Banner became the Hulk. That’s why Ross was so determined to hunt Banner down. That’s why Ross put Blonsky in position to become the Abomination.

But in CA:CW, Zemo’s secret plot is to get at five hibernating Winter Soldiers (in other words Soviet super soldiers). Stark is told about this. Black Widow is there when Steve Rogers first starts putting the pieces together. It’s reasonable that Ross gets some idea of what was really going on at some point, but he is able to put his obsession aside to continue pursuing Captain America.

I cannot help thinking that it would only take a hint at another super soldier program for Ross to start figuring out ways to get at it. Hunting for Rogers and Bucky would be the perfect excuse, but it didn’t happen.

James Rhodes

Rhodes is paralyzed from his injuries at the airport. While team Iron Man were being told the severity of Rhodes’ injuries and that he was not going to be able to walk again I couldn’t help thinking about Hawkeye in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Hawkeye was on death’s door, but Dr. Cho was able to use her technology to save him.

Dr. Cho died in Age of Ultron you say. She was not doing her research in a vacuum. She had assistants, some of whom would have survived if only because they had the day off when Ultron attacked. Cho was also working for a foundation. She would have had notes and reports and articles about her research. Tony Stark would have had the access, and more importantly the time, to replicate Dr. Cho’s accomplishments.

As I write this another solution for Rhody’s paralysis comes to mind. Extremis from Iron Man 3. At the end of that movie Tony Stark understood the technology well enough to reverse what was done to Pepper Potts. It seems obvious that Stark could use Extremis to fix Rhodes and then remove it like he did with Pepper.

Vision

Warmachine was hit by friendly fire during the battle at the airport. He was chasing after Captain America and the Winter Soldier as they were escaping in a quinjet when Vision missed Falcon and hit Warmachine. Then Warmachine fell, and fell, and fell before hitting the ground catastrophically. Iron man tried to save him, but couldn’t get there in time. Falcon also tried, but was too far away. There was a third flyer in the area, Vision.

For some reason he didn’t budge when Rhodes was hit. Sure, Vision was at the Scarlet Witch’s side when she was hurt, but he couldn’t do anything more than comfort her while she endured her injuries. He might have been able to catch Warmachine. Vision’s decision to support the Sakovia Accords showed that he thinks with the logic of a machine. Unless he knew for sure that he couldn’t do anything to help Warmachine, Vision would have tried.

Spider-Man

I think they did a great job with Spider-Man. You could tell he was out of his depth, but still felt he needed to live up to the faith others were putting in him. He is on my list because of the irony of his character. In the comics, Civil War happens because of the Superhuman Registration Act. This law required anyone with superhuman abilities to register with the government.

This was a non-issue in the MCU because no one with superhuman abilities keeps a secret identity except for two people, Daredevil and Spider-Man. I find it ironic that one of the two people in the MCU who keeps a secret identity joins Team Iron Man in the movie. And yes, I know that he did the same thing in the comics.

Scarlet Witch

Wanda Maximoff’s actions are the catalyst that results in the Sokovia Accords. A villain is about to blow himself up to kill Captain America. Scarlet Witch uses her abilities to lift the villain into the air so the explosion does not catch Cap. Unfortunately the explosion does reach an office building and some Wakandan diplomats are killed. It was a bad judgment call. Not as bad as bombing a hospital, but still bad. If she were more experienced or had more time to consider her options, things probably would have turned out better. After all, she uses her powers to contain an explosion at the airport battle.

Tony Stark arranges for Vision to keep her confined to the Avengers compound, for her own protection. Though we and Wanda really know it is for everyone else’s protection. She is unpredictable after all.

This bothered me. Captain America and Falcon were not put under house arrest. Bruce Banner was never put under house arrest, and he was a way more powerful loose cannon than Wanda. Vision, the synthetic person, who was so new that he doesn’t even understand his own reactions was made the prison guard.

With all the problems Marvel has been having with portraying gender equality in their films, fifty percent of the female heroes are sent to her room, but none of the male heroes are.

I know it was to get the most popular Marvel character into the MCU, but when Stark brings in a teen-aged boy to fight some of the most powerful and smartest heroes on the planet, what happened to Wanda looks even more patronizing.

Colonel Zemo

Zemo hatches an elaborate plan involving Soviet super soldiers. He seemed to have a good idea of the Winter Soldier’s past operations. I kept wondering how he knew what he did.

He was an officer in Sokovian intelligence. That could explain his knowledge, but it’s unlikely such a small country would have access to that information. He did say himself that Sokovia was in a sad state well before Ultron.

Maybe he was connected to Hydra. If he was, nothing revealed in the movie supports this.

There is the information Black Widow released onto the internet. This was Zemo’s most likely resource. He had years to research it. But this creates a problem.

Tony Stark discovered his father was very involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. He was curious about the organization, enough that he hacked their computers on a helicarrier in the Avengers. I cannot see him ignoring the wealth of information that was dumped during Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He certainly had the expertise and technology to sift through all that information for data about his father. Anything about how his parents died would be a top priority for him. If Zemo was able to piece together what happened, so would Tony Stark. The movie’s big reveal should not have been a surprise to him.

Tony Stark

If you’ve gotten this far and still have not seen the movie, stop now. Unless you do not care about having the plot’s biggest twist spoiled for you, bookmark this article to finish later.

Zemo’s ultimate plan is to destroy the Avengers. He knows the only way he can do that is by creating an internal conflict. He creates a rift between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers by exposing the fact that the Winter Soldier killed Stark’s parents during one of his missions for Hydra. There are two factors that build the rift: Roger’s unswerving loyalty to Bucky and the fact that Rogers knew what happened and didn’t tell Stark.

I don’t see either of these factors having the permanent effect Zemo wanted because of why Tony Stark is in the hero game. Most people would think it is because of his thirst for adventure. This certainly is part of it, but you can see a deeper reason if you look at what actually happens in the movies.

The pattern can be summed up as, “Stark and his gigantic ego try something. It blows up. He feels guilty about taking things too far. Iron Man has to clean things up.” Avengers is about the only movie where Iron Man is not dealing with the aftermath of something Stark did or how he handled a problem. Stark is his own nemesis.

Tony Stark is driven by guilt. This is why he will not be able to hold a grudge against Bucky or Steve. Steve already admitted that he held back from Stark because Steve is only human and didn’t know how to handle the knowledge. Bucky was never in control during his missions. Now he wants to turn away from his past. If Stark ever wants to be able to forgive himself, he has to forgive Bucky and Steve first. If they aren’t worthy of forgiveness, then Stark is not worthy either.

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Thanos: Supervillain Mastermind or Marvel’s Biggest Loser?

Wednesday, August 6th, 2014

We have been conditioned by the shows we watch and the books we read. Reaction to the villains of the Guardians of the Galaxy movie demonstrates this. Most reviewers love the movie but feel the villains were weak, Thanos especially. Mike Ryan at Screen Crush thinks Thanos is Marvel’s biggest loser. Matt Singer thinks Thanos is a liability for Marvel if he is going to be their heroes’ main threat.

 

It’s easy to see why people feel this way. Thanos is betrayed three times in the movie, twice by his daughters and once by his ally. He has an underling killed in front of him. His reaction to any of this is to sit in his throne with a slightly perturbed look on his face.

 

That is not the way a supervillain should react. Ronan should have been crushed for merely daring to raise his weapon against one of Thanos’ henchmen. Vendettas should have been called against Gamora and Nebula. That’s what we expected to see.

 

This is what I was going to argue when I started to write my last blog post. Luckily Thanos is one of my favourite Marvel villains, so I had plenty of material to research and realize that the heroes, the reviewers, the audience, and even I were being duped.

 

There are some things that need to be considered. First, until Guardians of the Galaxy, none of the heroes knew Thanos existed, let alone was making plays for the Infinity Stones. There is no reason to believe that Loki knows about Thanos, and Loki was working for him. Even after Gamora explains Thanos’ involvement everyone on “Team Good Guys” thinks he was only after the orb.

 

It is very easy to consider Thanos to be defeated and a non-threat. However, I would dare to say that as far as Thanos is concerned everything has gone according to plan. Let’s look at all the movies that feature an Infinity Stone.

 

There will be *SPOILERS*

 

Captain America: The First Avenger: This film introduces us to the Tessearact, the first Infinity Stone. This is possibly the only instance where we see an Infinity Stone and Thanos is not involved in any way. Of course, for all we know his interest was piqued when the Red Skull first activated the Tesseract and this is when he began formulating his plan.

 

The Avengers: Thanos’ allies actually get a hold of the Tesseract and use it, only to lose it by the end of the film. Most people would consider this a step backward for Thanos. But remember, he was smiling in his end credits scene. The Tesseract was the first of five Infinity Stones. Was it really to his benefit to be holding it while he tried to gather the others? The Tesseract ends up in Asgard.

 

Thor: the Dark Word: This film introduces us to the second Infinity Stone, the Aether. Thanos does not play a role in this film, but the stone ends up in the hands of the Collector. It is hard to imagine that Thanos was not aware of this.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy: Thanos finally exposes himself here. It is interesting that Gamora betrays him with the intention of selling the Orb to the Collector. How did she find out about him? Thanos raised Gamora. I would be very surprised if he had no idea how she would react if she found out his plans. The most likely scenario is that Thanos manipulated Gamora into doing what she did. The Collector would end up with two of the stones and everyone would be satisfied with this. The Collector personifies the activity he is named for. He would hold the stones but never contemplate using them, like an avid comic collector with a mint condition collectible.

 

Nebula betrayed Thanos because he preferred Gamora over Nebula and never missed an opportunity to tell her so. Was he being callous of her feelings or manipulating her to betray him and side with Ronan?

 

If Thanos wanted the Collector to have both stones, why would he allow Ronan to go after the Orb? If Ronan succeeded, the Collector’s defenses would be weakened and the Aether would be vulnerable. If Ronan failed, Thanos would know what to expect when he would raid the collection at some point in the future.

 

The results of the movies are that three of the five stones have been exposed and Thanos knows exactly where to find them. It was never in his interest to collect the stones one by one. The movies make it obvious that while the stones make a person powerful, he or she is not invulnerable. Godlike power does not come until all the stones are gathered together. If he held onto the Tesseract in The Avengers, it is very likely that someone would figure out what he is after and try to stop him before he is ready.

 

Another failure reviewers mention is that at least two teams of heroes have been formed as a direct result of Thanos’ attempts for the stones. I would recommend you read the Infinity Gauntlet comic books. Pay attention to how the series ends. What happens is not so much the heroes winning as it is Thanos losing. He was the most powerful entity in the universe. Once he gathers all the stones, dozens of teams of superheroes would not be a match for him.

Thanos has not been thwarted yet.

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Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy

Saturday, August 2nd, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy opened this week. It is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer. Overall it lives up to its potential. It has humour, adventure and vast cosmic vistas. Each character brings something to the story.

 

When I first sat down to write this I was going to be critical of how Thanos is portrayed. He gets betrayed three times and is virtually insulted to his face by an ally and does nothing but sit in his chair and let it happen. This did not seem like the correct response for a character being developed to be such a big villain that it will take the entire cast of heroes from the marvel Cinematic Universe to stand up to him.

 

As I was going over each of those betrayals and how Thanos’ non-responses made him seem less and less like a serious threat, I realized that he was staying absolutely true to character.

 

My first encounter with Thanos was in Jim Starlin’s run on the Adam Warlock series. Warlock is facing a future version of himself called the Magus. The Magus is the despotic leader of the Universal Church of Truth. Warlock is horrified by what the Magus does and what his church represents. Shortly after Warlock begins his war with the Church Thanos and Gamora show up and offer their assistance.

 

With Thanos’ help, Warlock is able to defeat the Magus. Later Warlock discovers that the Magus was to be Life’s Champion against Death’s Champion, Thanos. Warlock’s life path was intentionally and subtly altered so that Thanos would have to face a much less powerful opponent. It took the combined efforts of the Avengers, The Thing, Spider-man, and the ghost of Adam Warlock to defeat Thanos.

 

Thanos came back in the Infinity Gauntlet saga. This time it took all of Earth’s heroes, Galactus, the Celestials, and most of the cosmic entities to defeat Thanos. This defeat convinced Thanos that he was his own worst enemy and he gave up trying to destroy creation.

 

However, as fate would have it, Thanos also served as the defender of the universe on several occasions. He never did it to be the hero. His motivations were always selfish: to preserve his own life or to prevent others from achieving what he could not.

 

Whether he was trying to destroy everything or save it, he always used the same strategies. He would manipulate others to arrange the playing field to best suit his strategies. He would only come out into the open once the situation was as much to his advantage as he could make it.

 

This is the Thanos we see in GotG. He is not one to get all emotional and egotistic when things don’t go his way. He would rather let a minion be killed in front of him than distract an ally from the objective. Each betrayal was a setback, but they never brought the final objective out of reach.

 

Thanos’ inaction was not a sign of weakness. Rather, it was a sign of his cunning, resolve, and determination to be victorious at all costs. It shows just how dangerous a villain Thanos really is.

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A 10% Solution

Wednesday, July 30th, 2014

I saw Lucy yesterday. I liked it overall, but had a hard time getting around its use of the 10% brain myth. I enjoy sci-fi and fantasy, so suspending my disbelief is pretty easy, but I have a hard time when a major plot point is something we know is untrue for the world in which the story is set.

 

I have been thinking about how the story could have gone forward without relying on a false premise. Here is what I came up with.

 

An aspect of our brains that we do not use to full capacity is networking. We communicate through language, written and oral. What if we could actually connect brain-to-brain? Certainly our ability to accurately communicate with each other would improve drastically. Could it be like networking computers? Would our computing power increase with each brain in the network?

 

The movie would start with Lucy able to make the connection through touch. With her increased brain power she works out how to network with nearby brains without physical contact. As the movie progresses she is able to extend her range. By the end of the film she at the apex of a global network and can connect with any organism that has some kind of brain. Otherwise the plot moves along the same as in the theatrical release.

 

As an aside, this movie has a strong female lead, so the Bechdel Test is going to be applied to it. Does it pass? I’d have to say yes and no. There are a total of four women with speaking parts (unless you want to count the extras talking on cell phones). One of those women is the voice of Lucy’s mother on the phone. Another is a nurse who has two lines that she speaks to a male doctor.

 

That leaves just one conversation between two women, Lucy and her friend Caroline. Caroline’s side of the conversation is all about a guy she met. Lucy is using her new-found abilities to multitask, and seems distant from the conversation. However, she is participating, and does not talk about any men other than a brief mention of her boyfriend in response to one of Caroline’s questions. Can a conversation half pass the test?

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Doing the Best With What You’ve Got

Wednesday, June 4th, 2014

I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past over the weekend. I really enjoyed it. It strayed from the comic book storyline it was based on, but did so in a way that was consistent with what had already been established in the previous movies and with more substance than two issues from a comic book series could give.

Now that I’ve had a few days to think about the movie, I can see some problems with the plot. I’m not talking about technological anachronisms or continuity errors. It’s just that given the resources at hand, the characters could have accomplished their goals much more effectively and efficiently than they did.

Since I’m about to analyze and discuss aspects of the plot, expect major *SPOILERS* if you haven’t already seen the movie.

Quicksilver

Bryan Singer has set a high bar for Joss Wheadon. Quicksilver’s scenes were some of the best in the movie. Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle was the best use of music I’ve heard since Helix ended its first season. But these scenes also showed that Wolverine really didn’t need anyone else to change the timeline.

Since Mystique’s actions were history to Wolverine, he already knew everything he needed to be able to stop her. He just couldn’t do it alone. That’s why he sought out Xavier and Magneto. But Quicksilver could have handled things all on his own.

Breaking into the most secure prison in the US showed us that getting into a hotel conference room would have been child’s play for Quicksilver. He was fast enough to divert dozens of bullets fired by the prison guards. He could easily have used the same trick to protect Bolivar Trask and keep Mystique from being tasered by Stryker. The way he ran with Magneto to get past the first wave of guards would also work to get Mystique out of the room so that she couldn’t be captured and her DNA used to create the Sentinels.

In fact, there wasn’t a single challenge in the movie that Quicksilver couldn’t have solved on his own. He was like Star Trek: TNG’s transporters, the universal problem solver.

Mystique

Mystique’s mutant ability is to impersonate anyone almost perfectly. She is a formidable fighter, but infiltration and deception are her specialties. Why did she see killing Trask as her best option for stopping his Sentinel program?

At the end of the movie we see that Trask was charged and convicted of selling technology and weapons to hostile nations. That is exactly what he was doing when Mystique tried to assassinate him. He tried selling his plan to the US, but was rejected. So, he took the opportunity provided by the Paris Peace Accords to bring his ideas to the USSR, China and North Vietnam.

Mystique knew what Trask was doing. She had already impersonated him to get at his plans. That is how she knew how to find him. Wouldn’t exposing his intentions to the American authorities have discredited him without exposing mutants as threats? And she could have done this without revealing her activities. This tactic would have been much more effective, and more importantly, right in line with how she was used to dealing with problems.

Of course, if the writers had used Quicksilver and Mystique in these ways, the movie would have been much less entertaining.

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Has Big Bang Theory Lost It’s Geek Cred?

Wednesday, May 21st, 2014

 

This post is inspired by a discussion on our Facebook page. Patrick Gleason is of the opinion that Big Bang Theory has jumped the shark. While I still enjoy watching the show, I think he has a point.

When Big Bang Theory started, the humour was about the divide between mainstream society (typically the high school trope of jocks and popular girls) and geekdom. The show poked fun at both sides in almost equal measure. It certainly began with the idea that it was okay to be a geek. They were different, not inferior. I think one of the highlights of the show was when Penny realised she couldn’t date the men she had because she was now aware of their ignorance.

The show’s low point came when the guys were on their way to a convention. They were dressed as Star Trek characters and stopped at Vazquez Rocks, the setting for many scenes in various Trek episodes. While they were taking pictures their car was stolen. Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj found themselves in a diner trying to get help. For the first time the show had the guys completely embarrassed to be geeks. From that point on their geekiness became the source of most of the humour. It stopped being okay to be geeky.

Leonard, Howard and Raj have all expressed some regret at being geeky. The only character who always wears his geek with pride is Sheldon, and he is the main laughingstock of the show. At best he can be described as an eternal child. At worst we wonder if he is even human.

Two of the three women, Bernadette and Amy, can be seen as bridges between geeks and the mainstream. They are both successful scientists. However, Bernadette has always identified with the mainstream, and Amy is more of a nerd than a geek.

Bernadette pursues science as a means of achieving success. She makes more money than Howard. She enjoys the feeling of power she gets from playing with deadly pathogens. The pursuit of knowledge is probably low on the list of reasons she followed her course of study.

Howard is the clown in their relationship. He is the less successful opposite of Bernadette. He has an engineering degree from MIT. He has designed tools for NASA and even been to the ISS, but he is usually shown to be subordinate to her. The most obvious difference is that his career is based on a love of knowledge. He works in academia. If money is as important to him as it is to Bernadette, he easily has the knowledge, experience, and achievements to earn more than her if he moved into industry.

Amy is the female character that is supposed to be most like the men. She was introduced as essentially a female Sheldon. They are supposed to be perfectly suited to each other. But really, the only thing they have in common is their love of science. She doesn’t understand any of his other interests. She even went so far as to ruin Raiders of the Lost Ark for him by pointing out that Indiana Jones had absolutely no impact on the outcome of the movie.

Penny has more geek cred than Amy does. At least Penny collects Hello Kitty.

The only geek on the show who is not a scientist of some sort is Stuart. He is the ultimate looser. He can’t find happiness anywhere he looks. His business is a failure. Even his cat spurns him.

The message of the show has changed to “geeks are amusing, but it’s not cool to be one.”

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The Tie That Binds

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. aired its season finale. I enjoyed it, though I am with those who feel it didn’t live up to their expectations. It did, however, live up to its promises. The finale got me even more excited for Guardians of the Galaxy.

When the series was announced one its objectives was to open the Marvel Universe to only knew the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It had to show that what we saw on the big screen was part of a world that included secret organizations, weird occurrences, aliens, and super powers.

The show’s connection to the MCU goes all the way back to the first Iron Man movie in the form of Agent Phil Coulsen. The premier episode introduced us to Centipede which was a variation of Extremis, which we saw in Iron Man 3.

Thor: The Dark World had a more obvious presence on MAoS. The team was involved in the cleanup of the aftermath from the movie. They eventually encountered three different Asgardians, including Sif, played by Jamie Alexander. I’m happy to say her presence as a major player in an episode showed that Marvel won’t be afraid to bring people from the big screen onto the smaller one. By extension, we should also expect to see some of the small screen players jumping to the big screen.

As the season reached its climax we found out that the main story arc was tied to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This was wonderfully done. No one needed to have seen either the TV show or the movie to understand the other, but events unfolded in such a way that both shows were that much more interesting when the connections were made.

This brings me to the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy. If you haven’t been keeping up with MAoS, be prepared for some *spoilers* if you keep reading.

The onscreen versions of the X-Men and mutantkind in general are firmly in the grasp of Fox. This severely limits not only what characters Marvel can include in the MCU, but what types of characters are available. Marvel’s solution is the Inhumans.

For anyone who doesn’t know who they are, the Inhumans are a branch of humanity that were genetically modified by the Kree, an alien race. At puberty an Inhuman is exposed to the Terragen Mists which activate their powers. All in all, the Inhumans are a simple, in-house solution to Marvel’s mutant problem.

Coulsen was brought back to life through a drug made from the bodily fluids of the corpse of a large, blue alien. The Kree were one of the races Sif listed as matching the alien’s description. This same drug kept Skye, one of Coulson’s team members, from dying. We have been told that Skye is more than she seems. Unravelling her mystery is likely going to be a major story arc for the second season.

Skye’s blood was used to synthesize a variant of the drug which was used to save Garrett, the major villain of the season. The drug obviously had more than a healing effect on Garrett. When he wasn’t fighting Coulson’s team or killing US Army generals, Garrett was gushing about his new-found understanding of humanity’s future. He even drew an odd diagram on a glass wall.

It should be noted that after Coulson took a close look at the diagram he started carving an even more elaborate version into a wall.

Guardians of the Galaxy has a strong Kree presence. We know that Ronan the Accuser plays a major role in the story. We saw Korath the Pursuer in the trailer. The modern comic book version of the Guardians started with some characters who had ties to Thanos, introduced at the end of The Avengers.

Everyone is assuming the Guardians movie will bring us that much further into an Infinity Gauntlet movie arc. That probably is its major goal. However, after seeing Garrett and Coulson’s diagrams in the MAoS finale, I think Guardians of the Galaxy is going to bring the Terragen Mists to Earth so that the population of supers in the MCU is going to grow dramatically.

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