#just wish my suggestive dialogue warning had more substance

[robbyrobinson]

Tales from Cherryshrub, Mississippi: Kidnapped By A Demon

In the early 2000s, a man collapsed in front of a police station. He was completely naked and possessed a skeletal frame. Bystanders saw this action transpire, but they continued their stroll out of the assumption he was merely a drug addict who had become dependent on whatever substance he was taking. The chief of police came to the station not too long after the man fainted. Without much delay, he sends for some of his men to collect the man and bring him inside.

The man awoke in the interrogation room with a warm, wool blanket around him. His eyes were sunken in most likely from weeks of insomnia. He shakily had a cup of coffee in his hands: every instant he went to take a swig of the beverage, he spasmed in his chair, spilling the hot liquid on the floor. He looked behind his back constantly during the interview. He brought his cup down on the table and cupped his face hiding his shame.

"Sir, I'd like to introduce myself," the interrogator began, "My name is Officer Mackenzie, and I would like to ask you a few questions."

The man shook his head violently. "No! No! I can't!"

"Sir, we found you naked within arm's length of the station. We want to know what happened."

"I can't! He'll know where I'm at!"

Officer Mackenzie took a deep draw of his cigar and breathed out a ring of smoke. He waited a bit for the interviewee to recuperate. He set his timer to sixty minutes. During those minutes, he talked pleasurably with the man on unrelated topics to make the interviewee more comfortable in hopes of making him more lenient on elaborating what brought him there. The man breathed in slowly and took a final look behind his back before answering.

"Are you able to tell me what incidents brought you to our station?" Mackenzie asked.

"Yes," he said, "it may sound crazy, though."

Officer Mackenzie leaned backward in his chair, motioning for the man to continue. The interviewee's hands started to shake again, but he was able to choke out a mumbled line of words. "Have you...ever heard of the Popobawa?"

Officer Mackenzie stared at the man and then at his fellow officers. "No. I haven't."

The man sighed in relief. "You don't know? That's good."

"What does this...Pippy-Ba-Ra have to do with you?"

"That thing," the man drew out the last word, "is not of this Earth." He rubbed his eyes that were laced with eyebags. "He is some monster from this country I never heard of Zanzibar."

"Zanzibar?" Officer Mackenzie reiterated. "We live just north of Cherryshrub, Mississippi, son."

"My co-worker told me about the legend," the interviewee clarified, "I didn't believe it at first. Some bat thing from Hell who...well you know."

The interviewee was laughing nervously at the last note of his dialogue. Ugly tears began to fill his eyes as he deteriorated back into a sniveling wreck. "But I was wrong to encourage him like that. With my disbelief."

"What happened, son?"

"He...he appeared to me as a black cat that I pass on the way to work. That didn't intimidate me much. But each time I took the long drive home, I could've sworn I've felt a... dark presence watching my every movement. At night, as I laid in my bed, that same feeling of being watched arose in me. I saw a dark figure with a flaming eye glare at me from my closet. First, it was just a wing. Then another wing. His feet appeared immediately afterward. For an entire week, this thing stalked me, robbing me of my sleep. I held the covers firmly over my face by the time I saw his terrible, hideous eye. He spoke out to me in a voice only I could hear. That mocking, giddy voice continues to haunt me."

Officer Mackenzie raised an eyebrow. "So, this...creature from a country you never heard of kept you up at night and whispered to you?" Officer Mackenzie smashed the end of his cigarette butt onto the ashtray. "I understand being petrified by an urban legend, but what are we supposed to do about it?"

The interviewee shook his head defiantly. "No, you don't understand!" His shaking returned more violent and unprovoked than earlier. "He snatched me away in the night and took me into his world! He put his disgusting body on top of me and pressed down against me. My ribcages hurt so much, I thought he would crush them! He whispered horrible things to me and kept me as his prisoner for two months!" He broke down and banged his hands on the table. "He took me back home, and he made me do…horrid things to my wife and daughter. Amelia, baby, please forgive your foolish father!"

Without warning, he gripped his arms and brought his forehead down onto the table. He bashed his head once, twice, three times. Office Mackenzie watched the display with disturbance and ordered some of his fellow officers to restrain the man from bashing his head further. His forehead split open causing blood to trickle down. The ambulance was alerted to the situation an hour later, and they wheeled the man away in a gurney.

That night, Officer Mackenzie found himself further disturbed by what the interviewee had disclosed to him. Popobawa? Zanzibar? Mind control? He was barely able to comprehend anything that he was informed. In the middle of the night, he decided to conduct some research into this strange monster. A few hours on the internet proved fruitful. He was what the natives of Zanzibar referred to as a shetani or an evil spirit. From the looks of it, he was giving the populace quite the scare. Mass hysteria erupted in his wake; some were even killed under the false notion of them being the Popobawa. He thought back to the interviewee and how his lower regions were bleeding (contributing to him collapsing from what seemed at the time to be blood loss.

The Popobawa's origins were…sketchy at best. Some cite him being conjured by a sheik who was angered with his neighbors but as with any curse, it backfired tremendously. It had a perverted love for the most deplorable of the cardinal sins and in each of the cases, it broke into people's homes and violated them, or possessed family members into committing the crimes before leaving them to psychologically deteriorate from the realization behind their actions. That called to mind something that the interviewee had mentioned about the creature making him do indescribable things to his wife and daughter. Mackenzie couldn't help but cringe at the thought.

"So, what he apparently hates the most is when people vehemently deny his existence?" he pondered. He shrugged his shoulders before yawning. Whatever the case, he had spent too much time online researching something that very well sounded ridiculous.

Life continued normally for Officer Mackenzie. He oversaw the training of new officers and wrote and filed reports on the occasional changes the police department mandated. In July 2001, Officer Mackenzie was reviewing the latest police report, one of his lieutenants ran in.

"Sir, you may want to see this."

Without delay, Officer Mackenzie followed suit of his lieutenant to an apartment building. The road was blocked off by the ambulance. Yellow crime scene paper aligned the scene of the crime. From what the witnesses could describe, a man jumped off the second floor through one of the windows and collided on the roof of a car. Not much of his body survived the impact. Prior to his death, he complained of being stalked by some bat-winged monster who he blamed for his crimes of sexual abuse on his family. Even without a body, Officer Mackenzie didn't have difficulty with the identity of the man.

Officer Mackenzie excused himself from the crime scene, deciding to take a stroll. Along the way, Mackenzie walked past an alleyway. Before turning around the next corner, he heard a small rustle in the dumpster. Curious, he walked into the abandoned alleyway. He readied his gun under the belief that an assailant was making that noise. A cat's head popped up from the slashed garbage bags with a tilt suggesting curiosity.

"Wait, that's a black cat," Officer Mackenzie noted. The cat arched its back and jumped out of the dumpster. It landed by Mackenzie's feet letting out a tiny "mew." It rubbed itself against his legs, indicating wordlessly that it wanted to be picked up. Mackenzie sighed and complied to the feline's wishes. "I guess you can come home with me."

He arrived back home with the cat in tow. He was greeted by his wife and his son. His wife planted a kiss on his cheek while almost not noticing the feline in his hands. "Dear?" she asked, "why is there a cat?"

"Oh, I found this little scoundrel in the alleyway when I was notified of an incident."

His wife shook her head. "I've heard about what happened. I hate that the man took his own life. How tragic."

The couple's young son became enamored by the cat, naming it George W. Bush. The two would often seclude themselves to play with each other. However, strange occurrences began to befall the home. Items were disappearing, and there was knocking throughout the home. The couch and other sofa were getting clawed open by George W. Bush. From there on, Officer Mackenzie placed George W. Bush in the garage. Nevertheless, mysterious happenings were continuing to plague the family.

One night after a grueling hour of work, Officer Mackenzie collapsed onto his bed and immediately slipped into sleep. Around 8, a chill ran down his spine for some unknown reason. Before he could comprehend what was happening, he found his eyes wandering towards his closet which was now open. He tried to rationalize it as just being the case of a gust of wind, but he stopped in his thoughts when he saw something large protruding from the closet. In the moonlight, he could make out a batwing. However, it belonged to what may as well be a larger species than the ones native to his county.

"You have yet to believe that I exist?"

Mackenzie wanted to scream, but he felt something pressing down firmly on his abdomen. His arms were glued to his sides just as paralyzed. The door creaked open further when the wing began to beat in and up and down fashion. The scent of sulfur filled the room. Another bat wing emerged from the closet. The monster's footsteps echoed on the floor. The large frame of the creature erupted from the restricted space. What Mackenzie saw next was the creature's singular, flaming eye.

The Popobawa darted at Mackenzie like a speeding bullet. He swept the chief of police off his feet and made for the windowsill. Mackenzie's wife shot awake from the sound of the glass breaking. Mackenzie regained consciousness and awoke to find himself in a strange realm. Within the realm, he saw what appeared to be emaciated skeletons in piles around the Popobawa. The realm was laced with a yellow hinge, explaining the smell of sulfur.

"Where am I?" Officer Mackenzie finally asked.

The Popobawa acted hurt. "You don't remember me? As your cat, I was certain that you would recognize me."

Officer Mackenzie's eyes widened. He went to pick himself up, but he was still paralyzed. The large bat monster towered over him. Popobawa bent downwards with a demented smile on his face. "I'm so happy to have a new playmate. I once knew this man who also refused to believe in me. I stalked him relentlessly for weeks until I drove him mad."

The grip that Popobawa had on Mackenzie increased. Mackenzie felt his ribcage straining from the monster's weight. If the Popobawa did not relent, his ribcage would be crushed into a paste in no time. Warmblood was seeping out of Mackenzie's mouth. His words came out in a garbled hush. "Please, Popobawa, what do you want of me?"

The Popobawa's sadistic smile flared again. "You didn't believe I existed. That other fool also refused to believe I existed. I kept him in my realm for a solid week, but the rules of my world do not even begin to resemble your own." He cupped Mackenzie's cheek with one of his single-fingered hands. The weight was now becoming unbearable. "I can't decide whether to emasculate you here or now or crush you to nothingness. Either one is a fine idea for me."

Mackenzie's bones were on the brink of splintering. He was done for, he thought. His lungs were getting compressed as with his lower body. He was losing consciousness quickly. His eyes glazed over from the restricting of oxygen flow.

"I'll tell others. Just please…"

The last thing he heard was the shrill laughter from Popobawa. He felt himself drifting away, certain that he was about to enter the Pearly Gates. The creature's eye was glowing deeper. "Remember to tell others about what happened to you, or it will be worse next time."

''Beep! Beep!''

A blaring alarm stirred Mackenzie awake. Somehow, he was in the middle of a four-way way. His clothes were missing. More alarms sounded as the irritated drivers slammed down on their horns. Fully awake, Mackenzie sprinted to the side and called his wife. His wife was noticeably upset even though he felt that he was only gone for an hour. She arrived with fresh clothes and embraced her husband.

"We all thought you were dead, dear!"

"What? I was only gone for an hour."

They returned home, the first person greeting them being their son. But something felt off about the development. Before he was kidnapped by the Popobawa, his son was eight years old. And yet, the boy before him was now 23 years old. Like his mother, he hugged his perplexed father.

"Son? What happened?" Mackenzie inquired, "when did you grow up so fast?"

His son was confused. "I got older, Dad," he replied.

"But how can you be? You were still 8 years old when I disappeared."

His son had a look of depression on his face. "I was 8 years old. 15 years ago."

#cherryshrub #mississippi #Popobawa #cryptids #Zanzibar #incubus #monster

[missolitude]

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey Review

I don’t usually do game reviews but I’ve recently finished playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and I was urged to publish my thoughts and opinions about it. First off, this is the first and only game of the Franchise that I picked up, the main reason for that being that I’m primarily interested in well written RPGs and Odyssey promised what I look for in games: Choices and consequences, multiple endings, a well written story, romances and deep connections with other characters.

In my opinion the game fell flat on all of these criteria, and I will attempt to be as objective as I possibly can but my review of it will ultimately be less than favorable. If you are a fan of the game and have enjoyed it, I am happy for you, but if you are looking for an opinion that will bolster yours, you will not find it here. Also, there will be spoilers for the main story as well as side quests so if you haven’t finished the game, stop reading. You have been warned.

Graphics are great and the world is huge, but ultimately without substance

First of all, let’s start with the few positives. As someone who is mostly focused on a game’s substance, graphics are not what matters most to me, but they are admittedly the game’s strength. The game looks good and the graphics are great, the world is massive, there are endless locations to explore by either foot, horse or boat, and if you are a completionist like me, you will easily get 200+ hours of playtime out of the game. However, and this is where the negatives start already, the game seems to favor quantity over quality.

Once the novelty of the game wears off you will be quick to notice that the landscape is repetitive, and few of it is actually noteworthy or unique. Once you know one island, one temple, one military fort, you know them all. There are entire islands with just one single location on it that can be explored, the rest is lifeless and without substance. None of the citizens in cities or on the streets can be interacted with, nor will they react to you, unless you count some disgruntled huffs and cursing if you run them over with your horse. All of them can be killed without consequences to the story, the bounty you get can be paid off with just one button click and a couple of hours in you have so much money that this minor sum barely seems a noteworthy sacrifice.

Of course, don’t count the many times when you will be attacked by a lion or a boar or a wolf in close proximity to a random side quest NPC and accidentally kill the quest giver or the random person you need to make a delivery to and need to reload an earlier save, since all weapon attacks (it doesn’t matter if you use an Axe or a Spear or Daggers) are automatically AoE (even more so when using fire damage) and you will hit whoever stands close to you and unless you always use your bow in these kinds of situations, there is no safe way for you to make sure not to hit friendlies.

The majority of side quests are fillers and devoid of meaning or content, designed to get you out into the world. Kill a couple of Athenian soldiers, come back, get your reward, kill a couple of Spartan soldiers, come back, get your reward, destroy a couple of War Supplies, come back, get your reward, kill a couple of bandits and destroy some ships, get the stolen money/ring/whatever personal item from xyz, come back, get your reward, repeat ad infinitum. The quest dialogue becomes so repetitive that after a while you will be tempted to kill the quest giver and whoever you chose as your protagonist, not your target. ”I took care of them, everrry last one.” ....Please spare me.

Many world areas are level locked and you will need to grind if you want to explore them all, which means at some point you will experience these tedious, meaningless side quests and wish there was an easy way out or a short cut, and it exists in the form of an experience booster that can be acquired via microtransactions and you will wonder if the game was intentionally designed that way.

As a mercenary that will do jobs just for money you will work for both Athenians and Spartans in their war efforts, and the way in which quests are designed makes it even more obvious that it ultimately doesn’t matter which side you take. Areas will either be governed by Athenians or Spartans and you can weaken their defenses by destroying war supplies, killing soldiers and assassinating their leader. This unlocks a conquest battle in which you can choose to fight for either side. This is completely pointless from a story and character point of view, even more so when you consider that you can sabotage one side just to defend them in battle. Where’s the sense in that?

Your protagonist will mindlessly go along with it and seems to be completely unaware of the irony and idiocy, so either they are oblivious, spineless or generally without own motvations or agenda. Yes you get some experience and loot for conquest battles but other than that this game mechanic is utterly pointless. You could conquer the entire game world for one faction and it wouldn’t change the outcome of the story, the political climate, or how people react to you, you won’t be locked out of quests, nothing changes. It’s just a way for you the pass the time whilst nothing of substance was accomplished and to distract you from the fact that it is altogether meaningless and without consequences, as is the majority of the game.

There are only a couple of instances when you can influence minor parts of the story. Don’t let that fool you, there is only one ending, you can only change minor variables within that outcome. You have a say in how many family members will survive your journey. Sometimes you can decide where someone of importance dies, and that will influence whether you will be able to unveil and kill all of the Cultists that are responsible for destroying your family. One decision makes it possible for you to spare a Cultist who was blackmailed and actually wants to leave the cult, at which point he will give you the necessary information you need to unmask another Cultist. (Which is nonsensical - he has the proof you need on him, you should get it when you search his body regardless, period. His free will in that matter should be completely irrelevant.) At one point you can decide to let a couple of plague victims live and if you do the rest of the island will, unsurprisingly, become infected and the population dies. But these are the only actual choices with consequences the game will give you.

The rest are pseudo choices and the game will only make you want to believe that your decisions matter. Starting with what horse you choose - which is a non-choice. No matter which horse you pick, all of them will be called Phobos, and once you get Horse skins/designs as quest rewards or in form of microtransactions, its exterior will change anyway. Shake Markos’ hand or hug him? A non-choice. You will meet him later on and he won’t even reference it. Whatever you tell Phoibe at whichever point of the story? No consequences whatsoever, what happens to her is unavoidable. Let a couple of thugs go or kill them? A non-choice. Maybe they will make a brief appearance later on at which point you will kill them and that will be the last you ever heard of it. Kill a Cultist or save the baby? A non-choice. If you decide to save the baby the mother won’t even thank you and you get another side quest to then kill the Cultist. If you decide to pursue the Cultist (an old unarmed woman), she runs into a cave, past a pack of hungry wolves - there’s no way she could have survived the encounter, with or without you there.

What happens in the main story will remain unchanged. You will bring down the cult and destroy its Pyramid artifact, you will restore your Spear and with it your legacy, you will retrieve artifacts to seal Atlantis and you will find out who your real father is. All in all the story was disappointing and unoriginal and predictable. The few twists that there are are hardly surprising, most characters seem shallow and lifeless, the way certain scenes are written is just atrocious. Just to give one example: When you first meet your sibling after believing that they are dead your entire life they will not even blink an eye and tell you to leave and you just... go? You don’t ask questions, you are not surprised, you don’t argue, you just leave. Pretty realistic, right? After which your sibling will mindlessly beat another Cultist to death... yeah.

The dialogue is often flat, awkward and inconsistent, to the point where it constantly breaks your immersion. Quest givers will not acknowledge when you have already fulfilled their quest, or already know certain things they reveal to you, your protagonist will contradict themselves and often even within a couple of minutes. During Barnaba’s conversations at the Olympic games I played Kassandra as someone who doesn’t believe that the Gods have any sway over her destiny, and she made fun of God worship and said with a certain aggression that the Gods shouldn’t dare try to meddle with her life. In the next sentence she suggests to make an offering to Zeus. Split personality much?

There is also a huge disconnect between what you know as a player and what your character knows. You will unveil a Cultist via the menu mechanics and Kassandra will act surprised when they reveal who they are. The game will constantly spoiler itself and the pacing is all over the place. Your sibling is not the true leader of the Cult - if this should have been a surprise they shouldn’t have given me a Cult network that makes this clear from the start. At some point your mother will urge you to find out who your real father is - which I did, since I was curious if she had any unique dialogue about him and I just assumed that this was the game’s hint that I would get the most out of the game if I did his storyline now.

Turns out the storyline of who your real father is and what his true purpose is (and yours) will act as a sequel to the main story, and I had still about 40% of the main story left at this point. It felt like a huge spoiler (the irony, I know) and it made the actual ending of the main quest seem like an afterthought. I also was disappointed that you couldn’t decide what to do with the Cult’s Pyramid artifact - this could have been meaningful for a change but I suppose the game didn’t want to risk having possibilities in case they wanted to reference the ending in a sequel. Disheartening, to say the least.

The dalliances (I refuse to call them romances) with other characters mostly feel awkward, flat, superficial and cheesy. For the most part the game fails at conveying any deep connections or emotions and the majority of characters feel like a momentary fuck buddy - jump into bed with them and forget about them a minute later. Daphnae gets an honorable mention: you get the chance at deepening your relationship with her over the course of the game and you will have an actual decision that decides her fate in the end and the outcome might pull at your heartstrings. There aren’t any deeper consequences to that decision and no matter what you do, you will never see Daphnae again, but it is more than I expected and more than you get with other flings.

And of course there is Alkibiades. He was a pleasant surprise on every level, he is well written, complex, multi-faceted, dorky, flirtatious and intriguing. When you first meet him you think he’s a drunken hedonist at best and a perverse sex addict at worst. When you meet him again later, you begin to think he might be shady. But when you do more quests for him your perception on him will be challenged and you realize  there might be more to him than than meets the eye. You will meet him several times during the course of the game and each time adds something to his character and your connection with him feels genuine and meaningful.

I also loved the chemistry with Brasidas and I had high hopes for a meaningful relationship with his character but the game failed to do anything with it. I also romanced Kyra and her character was well-developed but the culmination felt forced and too dramatic. I would have understood that Thaletas, Kyra’s lover, wanted me dead had I not cultivated our relationship and even retrieved his father’s helmet from the bottom of the sea, but I have. I did the questlines for both Kyra and Thaletas and it didn’t matter. Thaletas forced my hand after finding out that Kyra chose me over him. I merely wanted to defeat him in combat but the game didn’t give me that choice, I had to kill him and Kyra hated my guts after that. I wasn’t angry at her for hating me, I was angry at the game for denying me choices. This could have been handled in any number of ways. You could have urged Kyra to communicate her desires to Thaletas. You could have chosen to talk to Thaletas yourself and be upfront with him about your intentions. You could have made this poly, we are in Ancient Greece after all. I’m all for drama and passion but this could have been handled with some semblance of intelligence and foresight and well, communication. That is an option in relationships, you know? It should have been an option here, and up to the player whether they take it or not.

As a last point I will mention the atrocious Greek accents. Many people have already said how forced they sound and they do, but nobody has ever questioned why they are even there in the first place. These people are in Ancient Greece, they speak in their mother tongue and English is merely the fantasy equivalent of that. People do not speak English with an accent in their home land. And don’t give me any weak excuses à la “that’s just how the animus translates” or “all Assassin’s Creed games had accents this is just the way it is” or “this is just to make the game sound more exotic” - no, no, no. It was a design choice and in my opinion it was a terrible one. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad with a more mellow and natural accent but it felt so forced and stilted it made listening to the NPCs unbearable most of the time, and it constantly broke my immersion. Look, if you want to make a game more exotic record it in Greek with Greek voice actors and add English subtitles. Or just leave certain names and designations and terms in Ancient Greek if you must, but having English spoken in a strong Greek accent makes no sense whatsoever.

All in all the game was pretty to look at and it certainly has potential and worthwhile ideas but they are poorly executed. Most of all, the substance was lacking. I felt like all of my actions ultimately didn’t matter, I found myself questioning my protagonist’s motivations and with that, my own. Why was I so intent on finding my family when not even my protagonist seemed to be overly concerned with their fate? That is especially true for the first half of the game. At no point did I ever feel like I could influence the story, or flesh out my character’s personality, or roleplay. Most of the time you only have two dialogue options, none of which ultimately matter. This feels especially unnatural when trying to have philosophic discussions with Sokrates. You often were caged between two extreme answers and there was no sensible middle option that would have seemed much more appropriate.

None of this would have been so terrible if this game would sell itself as it is, a combat focused open world game with a basically linear story. However the game was advertised as a game with choices, romances, consequences, and there were barely any to speak of. What infuriated me most was this deception. Yes of course you have certain choices - do they influence the world around you or the story? Mostly they don’t. Do you have multiple endings? No you don’t. You merely change certain variables within it. Is it an RPG? No, it certainly is not. I can only judge this game as it presented itself and it failed to deliver on its promises.

#assassin's creed: odyssey #ac:odyssey #ubisoft #kassandra #alexios #game reviews

[smartphone-science]

1080 is used to control pests in NZ. Its use is contested by a noisy few. A new report claims high levels of 1080 in rats washed up on a beach. Flora and Fauna of Aotearoa (F&F) won’t name the laboratory that did their testing. It has sparked a hunt for the mystery 1080 testing lab. It’s just the sort of thing my readers might spend some idle time on Sunday searching for clues. Whodunnit?

Readers can tackle Farah Hancock’s and Dave Hansford’s coverage (published in that order), and the Science Media Centre’s Expert Reaction report for background. You can also read the report itself (PDF file; obtained from a link in the SMC Expert Reaction report). Let us know what you think!

F&F spokeswoman Di Maxwell claimed to Dave Hansford their tester previously recieved a “bullet in the mail” and “vandalism”. There’s a media story about a previous chemical “testing” incident reporting the tester making the same claim. Let’s call that person Dr. Y. Dr. Y’s earlier case, like the recent one, is associated with environmental groups, and claims excessively high levels of a substance. Investigations at the time met a refusal to share the methods used, and the laboratory – similar to what F&F are doing now.

My lead is speculative, with all that goes with that. It could be completely off. Rather than expand on it, I’d like to close this piece by drawing attention to how these “science-y” presentations affect issues and invite ideas as how to move groups past this. They’re an odd form of showmanship that really isn’t helpful.

But first let’s run back over the story so far a little. It’s quite a tale.

Where, who and what

On North Beach near Westport on the West Coast of the South Island 680 animals were found dead. Tests by Landcare NZ found no 1080 residues in the rats, and examination of the bodies by Massey University haven’t identified a cause of death.

F&F published what they claim are laboratory tests showing animals from the beach have enormous amounts of 1080 residue in them. To scientists, however, their document raises more questions than answers.

F&F heavily promote that their lab is accredited, but toxicologists say the chemistry doesn’t add up. Cridge and Shaw (SMC report) note stomach tissue is not expected to have high levels of fluorocitrate.

Dave Hansford concluded, “the question being asked in the profession is whether the mystery report is anything more than a work of lurid fiction”.

F&F spokeswoman Maxwell said to Hansford that the tester, “[…] had his house vandalised, he had a bullet through the mail. I could go on and on.”

How many claims of a bullet in the mail and vandalism to someone (claiming to) work at a chemical testing laboratory in work linked to environmental groups are there in New Zealand?

You’d think there wouldn’t be many. Perhaps only one.

It’s easy to find a media account of one case. (Tip: you can limit Google search results to NZ sites by adding ‘site:.nz’.) For your whodunnit, however, there are a few catches.

Many small consistencies and parallels make Dr. Y an appealing candidate to be F&F’s tester, but other claims by F&F don’t match – at least on the face of it.

Hiding the laboratory

F&F say they outsourced to a large (3,000m2!) laboratory, with overseas sites and other details (2 links). Where is the laboratory? There are only a small number of labs approved for fluoracetate testing in NZ. (As for the Dr. Y option, as far as I know he never revealed his lab. Perhaps Sherlock would suggest keeping embellishment open as a possibility?)

Maxwell says she must hide the laboratory, “for the security and safety of the independent chemists involved”. F&F claim, “This is a whistleblower situation” and that, “They have been attacked for standing up before” (as Dr. Y’s claims).

The real question, I believe, is if they need protection for this event. I’m doubtful. It’s a bit hard to see where there is an axe to grind.

Online consensus seems to be this event is nature at work after a big storm. Rats drowning (perhaps especially those that live by riverbanks or in otherwise dry river beds), and some sea-life washing ashore. West Coast rivers in flood are an impressive sight. Nearby is Cape Foulwind, not named by accident. Fans of Occam’s Razor would suggest it’s the simpler and hence more likely idea. (But that’s not enough on it’s own.)

Besides, as Hansford wrote,

You’d think a laboratory that had succeeded where Landcare and Massey had allegedly failed might be keen to burnish its reputation in a competitive field, but no: despite persistent requests, F&F refused to divulge its identity “for the security and safety of the independent chemists involved”, and warned that anyone who asked for it would be summarily removed from its Facebook page.

This reads as the over-played thinking and heavy-handed control seen by groups opposed to “contested” topics on social media.

Getting lobbies to do better

Using the language of science dubious claims can be pushed as issues needing attention. This game of ‘scientific bluff’ can be a kind of showmanship that is deeply unhelpful.

I’ve seen this game of imitating science elsewhere, on other issues. For example, there are commissioned studies of vaccines and genetic modification that look—to be very kind—a mess.

These reports don’t convince scientists working in the field, but they can affect politics. They also force a need to “tear down” the facade of “science-y” claims erected. Aside from the effort that takes, I suspect addressing the claims leaves the lobbies feeling beseiged, even it’s ultimately at their own hand, and they then dig in.

Those opposed might well mean their efforts sincerely, within their limitations. It might stem in part from a mistrust of the institutions. F&F’s Facebook posts show elements of this.

How do we ask lobbies to lift their game and not play at this sort of thing? Do we, even?

Where the issue is properly not a science issue—as in many objections to GMOs are, for example—encouraging people to talk in terms of their non-science objections may help. In not giving ‘value’ issues space, perhaps it’s inevitable there’s more science-bluff? People perceive they’re heard if they make it “scientific”.

But what do you do when the issue is squarely a science one? I’m not sure I know the answer.

Perhaps we could offer visitor passes to witness the testing? The idea being that it might it might reassure them of the professionalism and care that the testing is done with. I can’t see this working for F&F if the tone of their Facebook posts are representative, but maybe for other groups.

Ideas welcome – the comments are open.

Other articles in Code for life

Political parties and GMOs: we all need to move on

1000 of these now

Not cow farts

For new parents or parents-to-be facing vaccine opinions

Scientific paper has a face in a turd. Who could it be?

Footnotes

As I write F&F are pushing more out. By withholding details needed to resolve their claims, they can rark them up. You’d wish they’d realise how insincere that looks to others, and the extent to which that lowers the judgement of their tests. (You’d also wish they’d see they’d do better by working with people rather than be combative. Humans are a mess sometimes.)

On their Facebook page F&F are both claiming there is a laboratory, but at the same time not saying what it is. Obviously that doesn’t engender confidence in their claim. Similarly unconvincing is F&F’s selective quoting of Shaw’s questions about DoC testing that leaves out his must stronger criticism of their own testing. Likewise, claiming to “want an open and transparent dialogue about the Government poison testing policies”, but not providing the same of their own testing doesn’t look equitable.

There’s more, but I’ll leave you to it!

I’m available (internationally) for writing on biological topics, particularly those related to genetics and molecular biology such as gene editing, GMOs, gene therapy.

Featured image

Description

“A defaced roadside sign between Inchbonnie and Jacksons in the South Island of New Zealand. The sign reads “The Lake Brunner Road The Heritage Highways” and is defaced with the message “DOC Kills Wild Life STOP 1080. It is in reference to the use of sodium fluoroacetate to kill the invasive, introduced possums which create problems for agriculture and biodiversity.”

Artist: Alan Liefting. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported. Source: Wikimedia Commons. (Cropped from original.)

via Science Blogs

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[timeagainreviews]

Rage Against the Machines Piloted by Squidgy Mutants

If you're coming to classic Doctor Who for the first time as a fan of the new series, it can be a bit of an adjustment. It's very much like watching a play, in that the sets aren't so much realistic, as they are implications. The acting is theatric, and everyone speaks in the Queen's English. Back in 2011 when I originally began my foray into classic Doctor Who, I found the differences shocking. But "The Daleks," was a serial that somewhat mystified me.

It's not impossible to put yourself into the mindset of a 1963 audience watching this for the first time. Because if you were to update this story with flashy editing and special effects, it would still be rather unique. Doctor Who is so unlike any other science fiction, despite how many tropes it borrows from the genre. There is still, to this day, not much similar. Only ten years previous, had one of the first adult-oriented science fictions been introduced to British television with "The Quartermass Experiment." But Doctor Who stove toward something broader- a family oriented science fiction.

The inception of Doctor Who was surprisingly "rag-tag," in many ways. The show's creator, Sydney Newman, had a vision, but it was by no means clear. It was more of an intuition on his behalf. He set producer Verity Lambert to the task of seeing this vision come to fruition. Ironically, one of the most iconic moments of the show came from ignoring one of Newman's early guidelines- "No bug-eyed monsters!"

If you recall from the end of the Cave of Skulls, the TARDIS had landed in an irradiated jungle of sorts. The trees were alien and stark white. Our crew, unaware of the dangerous atmosphere set out to explore the surface of this strange planet on which they've found themselves. Ian and Barbara are still upset about having not returned home, but they seem to be adjusting to this new reality as best they can.

After a closer inspection, Ian discovers that the forest is actually petrified. The branches of the trees don't blow in the breeze because some sort of process has turned them all into a kind of brittle stone. None of them can hide their amazement at this strange forest. Susan finds a fragile flower at the base of a tree, preserved perfectly in stone. She asks Ian to help pick it so she can bring it back to the TARDIS, but a scream heard from Barbara causes Ian to hastily drop the flower into Susan's hands, pulverising it.

The cause of Barbara's discontent was the discovery of a rather silly looking reptile the size of an alligator, covered in metal plating. Due to its rigid structure, it only appears to be alive. In truth, it's long dead. The Doctor speculates that the creature was held together by internal magnetic forces that it used to attract prey, which may have also been metal. It is obvious that they aren't on Earth. The Doctor decides to get a better vantage point to map the stars, in an attempt to figure out where they are.

At the top of a large hill, the Doctor discovers a city off in the distance, unperturbed by whatever process had petrified the forest. Naturally, his curious mind wants to explore this strange city, but his companions convince him to return to the TARDIS for the night so they might get some rest. Ian refuses to let the Doctor go alone, as he is the only one who can pilot the ship. Upon returning, Susan is distracted by another flower which separates her from the group. While standing behind she hears a strange sound and a mysterious human hand grasps her shoulder momentarily, causing her to sprint back to the TARDIS in fear.

The Doctor is still naive at this point in his life. He still thinks he knows everything. Therefore, the idea that Susan was grabbed sounds impossible to him. The Doctor we know nowadays would never assume what was impossible. She's seen too much to disbelieve things outrightly. But early on, the Doctor is so sure it couldn't happen. No one could live on the surface of this planet. Right?

Back on the TARDIS, Barbara is feeling a bit ill with a headache. We as the viewer know this has something to do with the radiation on the planet's surface, but our friends have no idea. Susan gives Barbara a tincture to cure what ails her. The two of them have a nice moment, where Barbara takes on a bit of a motherly/teacher role with Susan, comforting her. Ian and the Doctor argue over the logistics of surviving on this planet. Can they leave? How will they live? What will they eat? Which brings me to one of my favourite little moments in the Hartnell era- the food machine!

I know it's a funny thing to love, but it's such a product of its time. The Doctor and Susan make Ian and Barbara some bacon and eggs from the food machine. Only it comes out as a sort of tofu looking substance wrapped in foil. The Doctor explains how flavours are a sort of spectrum, much like colour. They can be mixed to make new ones. Funnily enough, you never see it in the show again after Hartnell's era. It's one of those things from Doctor Who that I wish they would bring back, if only for a silly nod.

Ok, back to it. The idea of going back to the TARDIS for the night is a bit of a joke. They spend all of five minutes before going right back outside. There's no indication of a passage of time longer than a moment. The Doctor pulls some mercurial trickster shit to get his way. By slight of hand, he sabotages the TARDIS' fluid link, claiming the mercury is empty, and they need to find more. (See what I did there?) It's a dirty trick, but it gets them out of the TARDIS to seek out more mercury in the mysterious city.

Now they're all back outside, precisely as the Doctor desired. They find a little silver box they mistake for a bomb, which leads to a lot of Ian hopping around like a dolt. It turns out to be a bit of medicine that they bring into the TARDIS. They then set off into the city. By the time they arrive, they're all exhausted. The radiation is taking a toll on their bodies. Ian makes the "brilliant," suggestion that they all split up. He goes his way, the Doctor and Susan go theirs, and Barbara goes hers.

I tried to imagine what it was like to watch that first episode end, but no matter how you cut it, it looks like Barbara is getting attacked by a toilet plunger. I imagine that perplexed many people in the following week waiting for the next episode. The rest of the crew have already met back up and go looking for Barbara. While looking they find a room full of scientific instruments that make me giggle a bit. One of the things I've always found humorous about Daleks was the idea that they could manage to build complex machinery with those sucker arms. One of the machines is a Geiger counter, which alerts them to the fact that they're stewing in radiation. The Doctor now knows why the forest was petrified. He surmises it was a neutron bomb, as the city still stands. 

The Doctor admits there is nothing wrong with the fluid link, which upsets Ian. He snatches the fluid link from the Doctor and demands they find Barbara.  Upon exiting the equipment room, they are surrounded by robotic creatures shaped like pepper pots. Unless you've been sleeping under a rock, you'll know right away these are Daleks. Their classic look hasn't changed much throughout the years. The ring modulator on their monotone voices is just as evil and grating as ever. They take our friends captive and lead them toward a containment block.

In what may be one of the dumbest moves in Doctor Who history, under zero cover from fire Ian makes a run for it. He's immediately shot by a Dalek, leaving his legs temporarily paralysed. The Doctor and Susan must carry him to their cell where they find Barbara has also been captured. One of the cooler things I noticed this time around was that the Daleks have a small round screen in their control room that has the time vortex from the opening credits. My headcanon is that this is them, pre-time travel, experimenting with this newfound phenomena. I'd love to know if anyone has ever done a story about this.

The Daleks decide for the time to keep their captives alive. They want to know more about these strangers from the outside. The Daleks interrogate the Doctor and discover the drugs our friends found outside the TARDIS are anti-radiation drugs. They allow one of the crew to go fetch the drugs, thinking they could duplicate it and use it for themselves. The person they send is Susan, who is basically useless, so she spends a lot of time running through the forest like a moron.

While in the forest, Susan meets a man named Alydon from a race of people know as the Thals, one of two dominant races of this planet, Skaro. The Thals were once a proud race of warriors who were at war with the Daleks, hence the neutronic bombs. The radiation mutated both races, but the Thals had come back around to a more human appearance, while the Daleks remained horribly mutated in their metal encasings. Alydon tells Susan that it was he who tried to get her attention in the forest and that it was also him who left the drugs as a gift. He belongs to a small group of Thals that have been searching for a new source of food. Their hope is to establish some sort of treaty with the Daleks. He gives Susan his cloak and sends her on her way with a warning about the Daleks.

Alydon heads back to his encampment to discuss the possibility of a treaty. At this point, it's worth noting that the Thals are basically interchangeable. The men are all tall, handsome, with blonde hair. The women all dress like Vegas showgirls and also possess blonde hair. They're all the embodiment of the Aryan ideal, which is ironic considering their biggest enemy is the embodiment of Nazi ideals. The main Thals worth noting are- Alydon: notable for being second in command, Temmosus: notable for being the leader and having "I'll be dead by the end of this story," stamped all over his forehead, and Dyoni: notable for being a woman with actual dialogue. All of the other ones are basically fodder for the story.

Susan returns with the drugs and passes them around, which for the 60's, is a lot less exciting than it sounds. The Daleks listen in and discover the Thals' plan to broker peace, so they play along, all the while devising their own plan. Using Susan's signature on a letter, they plan to trick the Thals into an ambush.

Recurring Doctor Who villains always come back, bigger, better, meaner. The Daleks of modern Doctor Who murder without warning, can fly, are made of reinforced Dalekanium, and can even fry people who touch them. The first time we see them, it's a different story. The Doctor theorises that they must be powered by static electricity from the metal floors and pathways. Or as Ian says "Like dodgems!" at the fair. It makes the Twelfth Doctor's "Anyone for dodgems?" line from "The Witch's Familiar," all the funnier. Mixing what little water they've been given with mud from Susan's shoe, they create a sort of mudball which they use on the guard Dalek's eyestalk and push it onto Alydon's cloak, insulating it from the statically charged floor. The Dalek powers down, and they open up the casing, replacing the squidgy inhabitant with Ian.

What comes next is a lot of cat and mouse. Our friends escape the Daleks, while they try and stop them. Ian tries to warn the Thals that the food exchange is really an ambush. But Temmosus tries to reason with the Daleks, leading to his very predictable death. The Thals and the TARDIS crew escape with as much food as possible and retreat to the encampment. There, Dyoni tells the tale of Skaro's history. Ian, learning of the Thals' previous status as a warrior race, rallies the new leader Alydon to once again take up arms against the Daleks. The Doctor would rather leave altogether but learns that leaving would be impossible, as the Daleks confiscated the TARDIS' fluid link when they took him captive. It's funny that they used to have to write reasons to keep the Doctor around. "When people need help, I never refuse," is not yet the Doctor's personal axiom.

I mentioned in the "Cave of Skulls," review that elements of the story were Arthurian in nature. The next part of our story also has a bit of a medieval vibe to it as well. Our heroes must infiltrate the Dalek city. However, it's well guarded by Daleks and/or cameras at every entrance. From the back is a natural barrier created by a bog known as "The Lake of Mutations," full of deadly beasts, mutated by centuries of radiation. But it has one thing going for it- it's unguarded. This is mostly because to traverse the swamp would be suicide. Ian and Barbara, along with a group of Thals go the back way. The Doctor and Susan act as a distraction going the front way. We lose a few interchangeable Thals along the way but escape mostly unscathed.

The Doctor and Susan sneak into the city by scrambling the Dalek's cameras and work on a plan that will depower every Dalek in the city by destroying the static electricity generator. But doing so alerts the Daleks to their presence and they're captured. The Daleks, having learned that they need the radiation to survive, plan to build a new neutron bomb to kill the Thals, leaving them the supreme rulers of Skaro. However, the bomb would take too long to build with their little toilet plungers, so they decide instead to explode their nuclear reactors. How this wouldn't also power down their static charge is beyond me.

What comes next is possibly the most aptly named episode of Doctor Who ever- "The Ordeal." It is exactly that. Ian and Barbara are now in the cave beyond the lake with their Thal companions. They spend the bulk of this episode trying to cross a fucking ravine, and it's brutally uninteresting. Another interchangeable Thal dies, cutting himself free to save Ian from falling as well. Ho-hum. They make their way through an opening in the cave into a rather large facility, or as it appears onscreen- a stock photo of a big industrial plant. It's all rather comical.

While in Dalek custody, the Doctor pleads with the Daleks to reconsider killing all other life on the planet, but they start the countdown anyway. Since this episode, it's been established that the Daleks count in "rels," rather than seconds. Rels are a bit slower than seconds, and while they didn't call them rels in this story, I pulled out a timer to see just how much slower the countdown was from actual seconds. I counted just below three seconds per number. The fact that they had one single Dalek doing the countdown from 200 back, was possibly the most Dalek thing ever. So stupidly inefficient.

While the countdown is going, Alydon has brought a separate party through the front of the city and met up with Ian and Barbara's party. They join forces to take out the Dalek's machinery, stopping the radiation. They also take out their power source, powering down all of the Daleks in the city. While doing this, we lose more interchangeable Thals as they dance with the Daleks, fighting them off with stone tree branches and rocks from the cave. It's very Ewok of them.

Fluid link in hand, the Doctor, his friends, and the newly radicalised Thals head back to the TARDIS. In possibly one of the more shocking moments of the episode, Ganatus, a random Thal, exchanges a romantic kiss with Barbara as they part. It's not the kiss that is shocking, so much as the fact that they had any kind of romantic feelings at all. Nothing in the story up to this point had supported this. It's all rather forced, but whatever. Get you some, B!

Back on the TARDIS, our crew sets off into motion. However, the TARDIS console sparks and flashes, and our four heroes fall to the floor!

Final thoughts: Terry Nation's "The Daleks," is an iconic story. If you've never seen it, it's a must see. Not only does it establish the Doctor's oldest foes, but it's also the story that created "Dalekmania." Children went nuts for these stupid pepper pots, and it really pushed the popularity of the show forward. However, after having seen it once, I must say, I struggled to get through it a second time. The pacing is awful. It's overlong, and there is little to no plot. Though some of the musical cues they played over the Dalek city are particularly effective. It's no secret that I found the Thals one dimensional. I found the cavemen of the previous story more relatable. This is not to say they are without merits though. The idea that the Daleks used to share a planet makes them tragic is some respects. There were some interesting, if not dated, arguments about pacifism as well. The very idea of Skaro, with it's Lake of Mutations, and petrified forests is wonderfully creative. It's easy to see why this was the story that captured the imagination of so many, and never let go.

Hey guys! Sorry this was late. Been a little busy with life. Might push the Twin Peaks review back a day or two. But we’ll see what happens tomorrow. Regardless, I might do the next Doctor Who review sooner than later. “The Edge of Destruction,” is such a short story, it shouldn’t take long to write.

#Doctor Who #first doctor #william hartnell #william russell #jacqueline hill #carole ann ford #susan foreman #barbara wright #ian chesterton #ian and barbara #tardis #bbc #terry nation #daleks #the daleks #doctor who and the daleks