Skip to main content

Forever War

I think a film or television version of Joe Haldemann's novel could be achieved. In this version extreme measures are taken to control the population and there is no faster-than-light travel. The starships are powered by anti-matter drives and also use solar sails. A vessel capable of journeying to a target system and returning can achieve a velocity of 22% of lightspeed. The crew enter hibernation during most of the journey. In extremis a ship can travel at 44% of lightspeed and this method is sometimes used to avoid enemy ships or to attack enemy bases.
When Mandela is conscripted there is no knowledge of alien life but a number of exoplanets are believed to contain life. UNEF and the Elite Conscription Act are established in order to send the most qualified expeditions to these planets to establish their suitability for colonisation.
Private Mandela's platoon is the first to encounter a Tauran base. When their landing craft is shot down during his second tour of duty the UNEF brass confirm that intelligent-and belligerent-life exists elsewhere in the universe. UNEF reacts by extending the number of tours from two to an infinite number, ending only when the conscripted reaches the age of 25.

Well.......
that was idea one anyway.

I think a version can be made which is more faithful to the source material but in which the UN controls the population by discouraging vaginal intercourse.        

Version two: The war, or at least it's preparation, begins in 1992. Mandela is conscripted in a secret programme in 1997. The general public is aware of the Tauran's existence when a Tauran vessel is discovered on the surface of Mars in 2035. The shuttle programme is used for this secret war along with a secret conscription programme.   
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Westeros 2

One thing which bothers me about ASOIAF/GOT  is the height of the Wall and the fact that people have been able to cross over it. Not just stone-age Wildlings but that the (supposedly under-manned and under-funded) Night’s Watch were not only able to get to the top of the Wall but actually place defences on the top!  The Wall is actually so high that people would get blown off by the wind on a regular basis! It is established in the books that the Wall (which is 700 feet high and 300 miles long) protects itself, so perhaps this is more of a plot hole. OK, so let's imagine that the Wall is, actually (more like) 300 feet high and 150 miles long, while some parts of it have fallen down. At these parts the Night's Watch have their fortifications. Specifically Castle Black, Mole's Fort which basically contains a trebuchet and Eastwatch, where the Wall is a consistent 200 feet high and extends 60 feet into the Narrow Sea  There are a number of abandoned castles on the W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fan Theories Eight

Q both created and manipulated the Borg. They/He did this in order to prevent the version of the Federation in the Mirror Mirror  universe from coming to power. Without the Borg , the events of Star Trek:First Contact  would never have happened and the United Federation of Planets would become the Terran Empire. The Borg also made an alliance between long-time Federation adversaries the Romulan Star Empire. This allowed the Borg to invade Federation space by passing through Romulan space (the first time round) and is the reason for the Enterprise-E being ordered to the Romulan border  in  Star Trek:First Contact . Elder Romulan politicians and officers who opposed the alliance were ousted (and probably assimilated) in a coup, allowing ambitious officers like Sela to come to the fore. It makes a weird kind of sense for the Romulans to ally with the Borg, if only to keep the Federation on its toes. This means t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fanfic Two

It's just my idea of how I'd do "Gotham", the television programme about the adolescent Bruce Wayne. The programme misses quite a few opportunities to introduce entirely new characters or have biographies of the family background of established DC universe characters i.e. say The Joker's father. It would be interesting to introduce The Batman as a potential villain, eliminating Gotham's underworld as part of Bruce's need for revenge. But he is redeemed when his methods don't work against powered or supernatural characters or simply by his first meeting with The Man of Steel. My main thought is that Bruce himself becomes a suspect, and is even imprisoned, in the case of his parent's murder. The theory being that the young Bruce Wayne hired the underworld to eliminate his parents so he could take over Wayne Industries, and, perhaps, even the entire city.  The background to this is Bruce suffering three/four years of bat-related nightmares aft...
Post a Comment
Read more