Inspiracion: Fragged Empire - Moving Pictures

More Fragged Empire brain fodder, this time TV series and film for feeding my muse.  My focus tends to be who and why rather than where and how, so expect these to be on the soft sci-fi  to space opera side of the spectrum. My books finally came in from the Kickstarter and they are beautiful.  Wade Dyer definitely knocked the design and presentation out of the park.

Dark Matter, 1 season. On Netflix. Six unnamed troubleshooters come out of stasis in response to a shipwide alert. Trouble is 5 of them are amnesiacs, the 6th is a repository for all their conflicting memories. Hijinks ensue as they suss out who they were, where they were going, and what they were going to do. Outside of a general job per week structure, the metaplot dwells on identity and memory's role in determining self.

Farscape, 4 seasons. On Netflix. Astronaut John Crichton is launched to the weirder side of the universe after a test launch off his experimental propulsion system. Now he's trying to get home abd avoid capture by the space fascists know as the Peacekeepers. The spaceship is alive, & there's a ton of interesting drugs/biotech present in the show. Creature designs are also fantastic, this was Star Trek: Voyager done better by Henson.  The show got cancelled so it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. I wonder what other great Australian television we're missing out on in the U.S.A.

The Expanse, currently airing. On Syfy.com.  Based on the James S.A. Corey novels of the same name, this one is very hard sci-fi.  Confined to our solar system, tensions escalate between the United Earth Government and the Democratic Republic of Mars while both polities keeps a collective boot on the throat of the Asteroid Belt, the source of all raw materials that feed the respective war machines. 

Firefly + Serenity 1 season & a film. On Netflix. The little engine that couldn't, this series casts a long shadow. Nothing else encapsulates the synthesis of space western quite like it except maybe Cowboy Bebop. Anything else I have to say about this has been said more eloquently by someone else. 

Cowboy Bebop, 1 season & a film. The other fantastic space western, nearly every episode is strong.  Following a crew of perpetually broke bounty hunters, chasing the next big score or trying to cleanse the sins of the past. Sometimes both.  Ship design, characterization, and world building details all combine to make this show feel lived in and real in a way few others do.

Other influences: Mass Effect 1-3, Dead Space 1-2, Lone Wolf & Cub, Europa Report, Total Recall, Pandorum, Pitch Black, Ghost in the Shell, The Quantum Thief,  & Paprika

Did I miss anything?

Inspiracion: Fragged Empire edition - Comics

My books are due for delivery this afternoon from the Fragged Empire Kickstarter, and to say I'm excited is an understatement.  Here's the elevator pitch: Farscape & Firefly's love child is the stage for Milton's Paradise Lost In Spaaaace, but this time Lucifer comes back and wages an apocalyptic war on the Gnostic custodians. After the last Archon falls, the Great Rebel departs for cosmos unknown leaving behind its genetically honed warhost of Nephilim to their own devices. Two hundred or so years later, the various species are jockeying for position and forging a future among the haunted stars.

I've been watching and reading a lot of sci-fi/space opera stuff in anticipation:

 

Descender, written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by Dustin Nguyen. Colossal robots known as "Harvesters" forcibly downsize galactic civilization, sparking a pogrom of synthetic life. A companion android, who may be the answer to big mysteries, reactivates on the mining colony turned mass grave that was once his home. Drama and suspense ensues as Tim-21 is pursued by specialized bounty hunters and various galactic polities.

Prophet, written by Brandon Graham and drawn by a rotating stable of artists.  In the far flung future, Earth is a squatters paradise for a myriad of alien species as the human race has long since faded into obscurity.  A contingency algorithm awakens John Prophet from stasis, setting him on a quest to revive the comatose Earth Empire from hidden enclaves and assert Humanity's dominance over the cosmos.  It's all very Jack Kirby + Conan + Metal Hurlant, lots of big ideas flung at the wall and stuck to each other, conceptually very dense.

Guardians of the Galaxy, written by Dan Abnett and drawn by Danny Lanning.  Undermanned, under powered, but with plenty of piss & vinegar, this underdog iteration of the Guardians are out to stymie existential threats.  Launched after the back to back Annihilation crossovers, the team includes stalwarts such as Rocket Raccoon, Starlord, Groot, Gamora and Drax as well as Marvel Cosmic deep cuts such as Quasar, Mantis, Adam Warlock and Moondragon.  This run was the basis for the 2014 film, and its definitely one of my favorites.

ODY-C, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Christian Ward.  It's Homer's Illiad on a galactic scale, the gods are still assholes but the Achean & Trojan heroes are all women.  There are three separate plots following Odysseus, Agememnon, and Menelaus on their separate treks across wine dark space.  The first volume is solid re-skin of the core text, the second volume is where things get really weird.

Moving Pictures next.