BorgSpace Interplanetary

Since the days of my first Lego set, I have never lost the joy of building something – having a goal for how something should look and feel and function, then correcting and tweaking until what I was making came as close to that goal as possible.

Kerbal Space Program takes that thought and expands upon it, by offering one all the parts to build a neat-looking airplane or space rocket, then challenging you to make it fly. And once you make it fly, to do something with it: can you reach the Pole? Can you reach orbit? Can you reach a moon or another planet? Can you land a rover or build a base on another world?

I’m thoroughly addicted. And I knew I was cursed to a few late nights when the idea popped into my head of building an imitation of a Valkyrie space fighter from the Macross anime… and then making it fly. Did I succeed? Well…

Threads of a Dilemma

Yesterday, I saw a trailer for a Fox Network “comedy” in which a lady wore the Japanese schoolgirl outfit known as a fuku, or seifuku, and I was repulsed by the sight. I have friends who own seifuku costumes. Heck, I own one. Why was I so horrified?

I knew I liked looking at ladies in various unlikely outfits at least as early as my introduction to Dungeons and Dragons. If you look at how they dressed female characters back then, “practical for fighting monsters” is the last concept that would cross your mind. I could only assume that the chainmail bikinis had to include some kind of magical deflector shield to be usable armor. Back then, I found the idea silly, but this was just a game, and it didn’t bother me.

Once I discovered anime, the seeds of doubt took root. I still loved some of the even more-implausible outfits, but seeing the characters move and be voiced by humans changed my perspective. I felt somehow more obliged to believe that someone would really wear this, and that was a bit of a stretch. Japan isn’t the most sexism-progressive country, and I wondered how women felt about being depicted in these costumes designed only to draw in the male gaze.

At fan conventions, I began to find out – or at least to become further confused. There were ladies all over the place wearing these costumes – at least the ones which could physically be hung on a human being’s body. I wanted to look, but was it okay to look? Which emotions were acceptable while I looked? What expression should I maintain to not seem creepy? The whole thing confused the hell out of me. If the costumes were not sexist, then why were there no obvious male equivalents? Why did they seem designed solely to encourage sexual thoughts in the viewer? And if they were sexist, how could these women – many of whom I knew to be intelligent, capable, and unwilling to take crap from anyone – be wearing them, and having such fun doing so?

Now I have an answer. There may be other answers but this idea has cleared up a few things. I’ve been into costuming since I was little, but in recent years I’ve chosen to wear rather more flamboyant outfits, for reasons which could be several blog posts on their own. Now some would call these outfits degrading when worn by any gender, but I stumbled upon a secret: if I’m wearing a costume *because I want to*, it’s not degrading at all. Someone else can try to convince me it is, but that’s my decision to make; and if my costume choice makes me feel appealing, confident, and happy, then people’s negative opinions don’t matter much.

And that’s the answer to my dilemma. If anyone wears something that makes them happy to wear, then I’m free to enjoy it. The inverse also holds true: no matter what the garment, if someone’s wearing something they don’t feel good in, something they are forced to wear to cater to another person’s whims, it’s bad. And these can be the exact same outfit, because at the end of the day, it’s just clothing. It has no power besides what we allow.

That’s how a seifuku on Fox turned my stomach. The lady didn’t want to wear the outfit, it was forced on her by someone to make it clear they had no respect at all for her. Hell, the costume was more over-the-top sexualized than you’d ever see at a con – which on its own doesn’t have to be a problem, but here was meant to say, “You are not a person, you are an advertising prop.” Nauseating.

So I’ll go back to looking with a clear conscience; I only hope that the wearer is having ten times as much fun wearing it as I am looking, because that’s how it works for me when I’m dressed up. I still can’t recommend the chainmail bikini for actual monster fighting, though. Dramatic poses only!

The Science of Doctor Who: s01e08, “Father’s Day”

The Doctor takes Rose Tyler back to the day when her father died, an event she was too young to witness and understand. In an impulse, Rose interferes with the death, and Time starts to unravel with fatal consequences to everyone nearby.

There aren’t many scientific concepts explored or mentioned in this episode, though Alexander Graham Bell is misquoted when cell phones start repeating “Watson, come here, I need you.” The proper quote is supposedly, “Watson, come here, I want you.” But on the other hand, Time’s damaged, so maybe it’s an alternate Bell speaking? As nitpicks go, that’s easily addressed.

I’m more interested in the way this episode treads in dangerous waters by discussing the way time travelers may interact with the world in their past and future. It’s a question that rarely bears serious examination, because things quickly don’t make sense. The show has contradicted itself many times over the decades, and will continue to do so as the seasons progress.

The Doctor tells Rose they can’t change something they’ve witnessed themselves, which fits the general tone of the show and prevents tension-killing easy answers to the many plot problems the characters have faced. But just what can we say is “witnessing”? Is a transmission over closed-circuit TV something one may change, but physical line-of-sight is not? What’s the range? If Rose looks at a star 1,000 light years away in the night sky, then visits a planet around that star 1,001 years ago, can she be certain that the supervillain won’t be able to blow the star up because she saw it perfectly healthy a “year” later?

Once again, you can figure out that there’s no way to answer these questions fairly and rationally because it makes the TV show impossible. And we don’t want that, so in the immortal words of the MST3K theme, “Just repeat to yourself, ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax.'” But that doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to think about the problem. We can set it aside for the duration of an episode, but entertainment doesn’t have to reflect reality perfectly. And I feel perfectly comfortable gently poking my favorite universes this way – it’s done with love, and I’m hardly going to stop watching.