62: Time Blender Michael Dorn (with Hillary Hemmingway and Jeffrey P. Lindsay)

FlippantSausage

How...........do these people think gravity works?

FancyShark

"In actuality, the best air he ever breathed was the air he stole from Cook, who would never breathe again"

gellaho

Dramatics now, why not

FlippantSausage

Like..........its emanating from the artifact horizontally but.......still doing things to the normal gravity?!

I've never seen a sci fi writer with this loose a grasp on gravity.

FancyShark

Aw. I was hoping his gesture would be a crotch grab followed by double birds

FlippantSausage

Oh nevermind, he went to Berkeley.

gellaho

I think Michael Dorn might have thought he was actually a Klingon

FlippantSausage

Explains a lot.

LyraV 42Dukes

He posed like no one had ever posed before. He flexed enough for seven men and ten more besides. He was All men. He was DORN. I mean MILLER.

FancyShark

This would make a pretty typical Star Trek

Except for all the taunting the woman's husband

That's more NuTrek

gellaho

Sure, the four rectangles somehow formed a six-sided container

FancyShark

"Please wait while I assemble this Rubik's Cube"

FlippantSausage

That's just math........shapes math!

gellaho

It's three dimensional, you need six sides

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

It really strikes me as kind of a Kirk thing, to be honest.

FlippantSausage

Maybe two of them fold?

No wait......

Fuck me.

I am bad at shapes math.

FancyShark

Yeah, but if it was classic Kirk, he'd have been in there before the husband even showed up

FlippantSausage

Riker would have tried for a three way.

LyraV 42Dukes

Like those spheres you get out of grocery store coin machines?

gellaho

Well, I guess we'll stop with the Pirate cuck charging Miller

FancyShark

oh no, whatever will the angry man with a stick do against the man who ascended to godhood

gellaho

Not a great place to stop, but there have been no good places to stop and I'm 115 pages into this 275 page book

John

We thank you for your sacrifice @gellaho

FancyShark

I'd say it's a good stopping point

FlippantSausage

It's a classic Star Trek cliffhanger.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

Wow, we've been at this for a while.

gellaho

To be continued

LyraV 42Dukes

You are a star @gellaho Thank You So Much!

John

5 hours to get to the actual plot of the story. That's gotta be a record.

FancyShark

This was awesome

Thank you, @gellaho !

Outstanding riffing, everyone!

gellaho

Thanks for being part of part one of this mutlipart series, who knows how many more parts there will be

gellaho

Fuck this book is crazy

FancyShark

That was a ton of fun

But yeah, it's definitely late. Gotta get dinner going. Have a good night, everybody! See you tomorrow, hopefully for Fight Night!

gellaho

This honestly might be the audio book I end up doing after Target Steele. Just, wild shit

gellaho

The Book Cage: Episode 60, Part 2: Let's Do the Time Blender Again

We will return to some of the craziest shit I've ever read with Star Trek's Michael Dorn's TIME BLENDER. Get prepared with some cliff top Tai Chi and bring along your possessed dead colleague. Be sure to avoid any chaos/gravity controlling artifacts so you can make it this Friday, 5PM eastern.

gellaho

Relax the back, cultivate Javo

hi gellaho I miss you. Did you see the dinosaur book

gellaho

@Brockway pin this, or be speared by an ancient pseudo-Polynesian Pirate

gellaho

I did

Relax the back, cultivate Javo

sick

gellaho

Goodbye until Friday

Relax the back, cultivate Javo

toodles

FancyShark

Later!

LyraV 42Dukes

I'm so psyched! I fucking love this book.

gellaho

Hey nerds. A little over an hour until TIME BLENDER continues. The preview still hasn't happened, so here it is again.

gellaho

I'm both under the weather and have drank a bottle of wine, so this should be great.

FancyShark

Oh no! Cold?

gellaho

Probably. I felt decent enough to drink a bottle of wine, so

FancyShark

That still sucks. Hope you feel better soon.

LyraV 42Dukes

Thank you for still doing this even when you're not feeling well, I've been looking forward to this book all week.

gellaho

If I'm ever too sick to read, you can consider me legally dead

FancyShark

I will have to duck out for a while in the middle of today's reading. Hopefully that doesn't cause me to miss the...uh...

I remember something about chaos being gravity and the hero being an idiot who let his friend's headwound go untreated and the friend was possessed by a thing and there was a volcano sacrifice attempt.

Did we ever get as far as a proper plot?

LyraV 42Dukes

There was an artifact that was also a gravity guarded time door and that had to do with the....war? Some kind of alien invasion maybe? It was kind of implied the arifact was important by whatever was possessing his buddy but Dorn never really addressed any of that. He was busy ogling the nude lady who was hanging out with that Pirate. Trying to remember has left me more confused.

FancyShark

Yeah. Artifact was necessary to stop an intergalactic conflict and they chose him as the best person to mediate it

FlippantSausage

All I really focused on was "What kind of dingus does a volcano sacrifice in an INACTIVE volcano?"

Brendanonymous

IT

IS

TIME

gellaho

Time to Blend, baby

gellaho

In case you missed it, or like me, were very drunk. Our hero, Michael Dorn Tony Miller, had just turned off an artifact that controlled chaos/gravity by solving a puzzle he didn't understand

FancyShark

Michael Dorn's self-insert protagonist is just the most awesomest. So he and a ninja biologist investigated an island close to Easter Island for 3.5 months. They were the only two people on the island because the civilization they were investigating all died after they used up all natural resources and turned to cannibalism. His buddy then fell and hit his head, woke up speaking like an alien or a demon, and he tried to fly his buddy to the hospital.

They got distracted by a dormant volcano, crashed, and discovered ships and planes from all eras of history were being used as housing for a volcano worshipping tribe. Our hero liked a naked lady, the lady's husband Pirate didn't like him. They tried to sacrifice our heroes to a volcano, then he received The Artifact, which is the key to stopping intergalactic war. It contains chaos. Except then it's actually gravity. He is now a god.

gellaho

Accurate

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

He also has Mok'bara tai chi mind powers.

gellaho

Here comes the Pirate spear. A well known pirate weapon

Brendanonymous

Okay, so there's a timespace wormhole fucking everything up and it's better than Michael Crichton, got it.

FancyShark

Yeah. Also, Tony never realized his buddy was possessed by an alien and was incredulous when told

LyraV 42Dukes

I forgot the Pirate is named 'Pirate'

FancyShark

And his friend died saving him from the Artifact

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

Wasn't the pirate just an islander in a pirate costume?

FancyShark

I think so?

FlippantSausage

Or just nobody cared to ask his name. he's probably got one, and like....aspirations and shit.

FancyShark

Yeah. Tony just calls him "Pirate" because of his outfit

FlippantSausage

Too bad, hes gonna get tai chid into the next life.

FancyShark

Tony is not a smart or likable man

FlippantSausage

And miller is gonna fuck his wife.

gellaho

Miller uses his black belt in karate to lift a panel

FancyShark

Getting knocked on your ass is the same as getting crushed by a huge object

FlippantSausage

I was hoping he'd realize he has the Half Life gravity gun in that box.

Like cmon.

gellaho

Very heroic

FlippantSausage

Chekhovs gravity box.

FancyShark

holy shit!

FlippantSausage

lol rad.

FancyShark

That'll teach him to not want another guy to bang his wife

LyraV 42Dukes

You also can really feel those three writers at certain points.

FlippantSausage

The videogame adaptation would make some money with this.

gellaho

Well, he came at you with a spear. You gotta defend yourself

FlippantSausage

Really? Horrified?

more like Hornified.

FancyShark

No, you're a murderer, Miller. You just murderered.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

Also there were all those kids the authors keep forgetting about

FlippantSausage

You don't super gravity murder a man and not get at least a half chub.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

You stealth bombered an orphanage, dude

gellaho

I don't remember establishing that the possession was from the future, but OK

Brendanonymous

He Red Vipered him!

FancyShark

oh right, Miller has PTSD for blowing up a school or orphanage instead of Saddam Hussein

Except they forgot about that after the first chapter

FlippantSausage

They look about the same from 20 thousand feet and moving at the speed of sound.

FancyShark

He was a pilot in Desert Storm

FlippantSausage

Also those orphans probably had like....dangerous stuff like empty water containers.

Brendanonymous

So this artifact is like a 2D black hole?

FlippantSausage

But also chaos.

gellaho

I guess Miller now has free reign. So he buries his friend

FancyShark

"Certainly more peaceful than he'd looked since the head wound"

FlippantSausage

Man he is doing some reaching to assign some emotional context to the flat puddle of goo that used to be Cook.

You flatten a skull and the facial expressions start to look a bit different.

FancyShark

Northeast, Cook's favorite direction

gellaho

Two things: (1) No idea how he knows which direction Berkeley is, (2) Why bury him like Berkeley is a religious location?

FlippantSausage

"Buried" is kind of a loose way to describe "Sloshed him out of a bucket."

FancyShark

Berkeley is the Mecca of tenured professors

FancyShark

"Wrung out"

Brendanonymous

Maybe it's where they first made love to a common street trollop at the same time.

gellaho

Miller is too embarrassed to eulogize his buddy

FlippantSausage

Hes part passenger pigeon.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

Like from Who Framed Roger Rabbit

FancyShark

"Sorry I didn't take you to a hospital?"

Nah, you're right. Silence is best.

LyraV 42Dukes

His close friend who he only mostly interally resented and harshly judged.

Brendanonymous

Pirate slowly rose from his puddled state. His insane, cartoon eyes whirling as he screamed.

FlippantSausage

"Welp, Cook ol buddy......I gotta go fuck a widow. Later, gator."

gellaho

Miller considers reckless speculation a key part of the scientific process

Brendanonymous

DO YOU REMEMBER ME, WORF? When I killed your captain, I looked JUST! LIKE! THIS!

RIP Cook, a character I almost met.

FancyShark

Miller still hasn't learned their language or heard them say more than one word that he thinks means "warrior"

FlippantSausage

"It occurred to Miller that since he had put their god in a box, that left a certain amount of opportunity for social advancement, according to his Polynesian culture expertise."

gellaho

Miller majored in jumping to conclusions

FancyShark

Actual translation: "Fuck you"

Brendanonymous

Worf is your god now, fools! And Worf desires--SHAVED ICE!

FlippantSausage

You can tell Miller comes from America and is in academia because he instantly feels the need to "fix" someone elses culture.

gellaho

Fucking nerd

Brendanonymous

If he were british he would have eaten their dead, so I'll take that hit.

FlippantSausage

God he is taking so goddam long to declare himself god king.

FancyShark

"And maybe, if there was time, inform Cook's family"

FlippantSausage

"Was Cook married? Miller would have to check. Maybe HIS widow would need some Miller Time."

Brendanonymous

How will these poor childlike innocents survive on the island they have lived on countless generations without a dangerous god to exploit them?

gellaho

The fish excrement really cleans out those wounds

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

"he briefly remembered Cook's son as he wiped the last of Cook's organs off his hands"

A Wombat

Does salt water cleanse wounds that effectively?

Brendanonymous

It's pretty good!

A Wombat

When it's in the sea?

Brendanonymous

My cuts healed a lot faster in summer as a kid.

A Wombat

Where all sorts of thousands of animals live?

FancyShark

Come on, sharks! Blood in the water!

Brendanonymous

Because fish, I dunno.

A Wombat

Huh.

Well then. Carry on, murderous psychopath!

Carry on.

Brendanonymous

It's MILLER time, sharks.

gellaho

Miller decides that cleansing fire is the only answer

FancyShark

We almost had lava sharks last time. This book is a goddamn tease

A Wombat

The best way to solve this society's prolems?

Introduce them to fossil fuels.

FlippantSausage

DRUNKEN BONFIREEEEEEE!

A Wombat

What could possibly go wrong.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

He searched a forest and found wood? His reputation as a brilliant outdoorsman is justified

FlippantSausage

"I AM YOUR PROMETHEUUS!"

gellaho

Well, I guess Miller has just gone crazy

A Wombat

Technically, Prometheus put himself at risk and engaged in great treachery and courage to steal fire.

FancyShark

Yes, Miller. Rewriting a culture is something that should be banged out before nighty night

A Wombat

Miller just found some fuel and started fire.

He's like dollar store Prometheus.

Brendanonymous

Behold, I have burned down your forest, forcing you to adapt.

Take to the sea and harvest its bounty!

FancyShark

"No fish in sea. All die."

A Wombat

Take to the sea! The aquatic ape theory may have been horseshit, but we can fix that this time!

What was his doctorate in, anyway?

FlippantSausage

Wait how did he work nursery rhymes into his doctoral thesis?

FancyShark

"No ape. Ape all die."

gellaho

Miller burns his dick with a flare gun

A Wombat

Like, is he a doctor of anything that would be useful for civilization.

FancyShark

Paleontology?

A Wombat

...oh, no, never mind, he's decided to become a vengeful and wrathful God.

FlippantSausage

Polynesian Studies?

A Wombat

Cool.

LyraV 42Dukes

If you're going to make the main character so clearly yourself it seems like you'd write less of an insufferable dick.

FancyShark

"Chief, your god has an owie on his downstairs place. Kiss and make better."

"Fucking colonizing jackass."

A Wombat

Someone once wrote a time travel story about how utterly useless most modern academics and technologists would be even three hundred years ago.

This guy? He didn't read that story.

I can't think of the name.

FlippantSausage

Thats the difference between us plebes and the golden elite of the cast of TNG.

Brendanonymous

I bet 95% of the time in these situations, the hunter-gatherers are just like "Oh wow, this guy has some dope shit."

A Wombat

I know it's something de Camp went back to, but it wasn't his short story. Dammit, now that's going to bother me.

FlippantSausage

"Lets wait until this idiot falls asleep and slit his throat and let God out of that stupid box."

A Wombat

If these hunter gatherers are stupid enough to fall for this, and not simultaneously smart enough to realize they can kill you and take your stuff, or enslave you and make you perform it at their will.

You are not building a society.

gellaho

Well, that's that. I guess, new religion

A Wombat

You are establishing an adult education center.

FlippantSausage

"We can let Dan's wife Yuki do it."

A Wombat

See? See? Adult education center.

FlippantSausage

Jesus he just set these poor fuckers up for Hernan Cortez.

FancyShark

If a man can turn you into liquid with a thought, it doesn't matter what he says. You nod.

gellaho

Fuck it, party time!

gellaho

Miller also doesn't have a way to leave

A Wombat

"Why does God's messenger need beer?"

Trick question, everyone needs beer.

The Sumerians were right.

FancyShark

I'm glad he decided to be polite after crushing one of their people into marinara

A Wombat

About this and so much else.

FlippantSausage

You don't wanna be worshipping the gods that didnt invent booze, they suck.

A Wombat

It's Miller time!

All the time.

gellaho

The writer(s) experiment with short sentences

FancyShark

Funny that Miller didn't decide their society could do without the dick skirt the Chief has

LyraV 42Dukes

I bet the naked native woman shows back up.

A Wombat

So... at some point in the mysterious future, a person you won't recognize will be your God, come among you. And you will know him from his actions because like me, his messenger, he will probably kill all sorts of you with powers beyond your comprehension.

I've heard worse religions.

gellaho

Time to fuck Pirate's lady friend

A Wombat

Oh good, she either believes you're an all powerful immortal.

LyraV 42Dukes

Just so he can desperately pretend to respect her for at least a paragraph. I was wrong.

FancyShark

Then the knives

A Wombat

OR she thinks you're a moron.

That's a sound policy to base a sexual relationship on.

No notes.

Brendanonymous

I grew up Catholic, so all this is in Revelation.

gellaho

Bare asses always make me think about potatoes, too

A Wombat

Like I said, it's not a bad pitch.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

The fact that his dick has flare gun blisters on it slightly diminished the experience

A Wombat

Okay, so... unrelated... has any of these people actually touched silk?

Because if your partner's skin feels like silk, something is wrong.

That's not a texture humans come in.

FancyShark

"Again?" or "Better luck second time?"

FlippantSausage

Wow two times. Going real hard on the "Miller\Dorn is an indefatigable lover..........ladieeeesssss."

A Wombat

I'm not sure it's a texture anything alive comes in besides silk worms, and most of the time they're not when we take the silk away.

Brendanonymous

Some millers grind grain. This Miller grinds pubic mounds.

A Wombat

Now, now.

Generally pubic mounds.

gellaho

The fun thing about writing is that you can ignore all the realities of the world. Like, where does gasoline come from

A Wombat

So... none of that was necessary?

FancyShark

Gas tanks are full of Pirate

A Wombat

He could have refilled his gas tanks whenever he wanted?

Brendanonymous

Maybe he condensed from the other planes.

FlippantSausage

He built one from RAW TIME!

A Wombat

Gasoline doesn't work that way, but most people don't know that.

So I'm going to allow it.

But I'm watching you, Dorn.

gellaho

They certainly won't notice the crippled man dragging a sacred artifact down a volcano

A Wombat

Wait, I just figured it out.

He's not really writing a novel.

He's writing an in-universe Star Trek book.

A book about "Why we follow the Prime Directive'.

FancyShark

Yeah, the whole thing has played like a Star Trek story so far

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

Miller is a star trek villain

gellaho

That must be some sex

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

i guess he replicated that gasoline then

A Wombat

Wow, he angered the actual Gods.

Brendanonymous

Yeah but these planes are in a time dilation from whooooo everywhere.

they might all be like six months old relatively.

FlippantSausage

Yes, we all know that feeling of reluctance to leave the woman you barely know but have fucked three times after liquifying her husband.

A Wombat

I mean, that's possible, but it's way more credit than I want to give him.

gellaho

Well, their society was fucked with a future space artifact that controls gravity and chaos. So I don't think this qualifies

Brendanonymous

There is no sex in Star Trek.

A Wombat

Do two wrongs make a right in a prime directive situation?

Captain Kirk says maybe!

Brendanonymous

But also wars

FancyShark

I'm sorry, Brendan, but Kirk says otherwise

gellaho

Now visions of Bhodi Lis

Brendanonymous

The kobayashi maru is completely solvable if you propose an orgy.

FancyShark

NOOOOO!

No Bodhi Li!

Brendanonymous

The minute I knew JJ Abrams was a hack was Kirk boning two green chicks to the Black Keys.

FlippantSausage

"Miller rolled onto his back and fired his gun into the air, emptying the clip."

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

The bohdis are just mimics from D&D

gellaho

Very logical

FancyShark

Fascinating

A Wombat

Somewhere, Spock is holding his head in pain.

FlippantSausage

Oh now you summon the specter of logic now that the glowing orb is in play.

A Wombat

And Nimoy's been dead for years.

Brendanonymous

I'm not saying the Black Keys aren't great fuck-music. I'm just saying imagine if I took you home and then played you some horny 16th C. baroque organista music.

Wombat, I don't need to know I missed the baroque period by 200 years.

A Wombat

But

but

gellaho

After jumping to several conclusions, he refuses this

FlippantSausage

I dunno if you were James Tiberius Kirk id see where it was going.

FancyShark

goddammit, Tony

A Wombat

Honestly, I really would not be surprised if Kirk had surprising taste in baroque music.

FancyShark

You're demanding proof after the dude that told you about the war is dead?!

A Wombat

Kirk isn't dumb, he's blunt.

FlippantSausage

Miller is still fucking around being a doubter after boxing up a time bending gravity orb.

Shark Puke Fetishist GDC

Star trek characters love anything in the public domain

FlippantSausage

And fuckin.

A Wombat

I mean, that's probably the real reason.

But I also like to imagine they love our earlier history because the late 20th century is just trash to them.

gellaho

You say this about a group of people who are obsessed with old show tunes

LyraV 42Dukes

These things didnt happen with Tony, except for all the things that have totally happened!

A Wombat

So they retained none of it.

Like there's a history class in the Star Trek world where they just say '1945 to 2050, nothing of value happened in culture."

LyraV 42Dukes

Also I refer to myself by my full name and all my titles in my interal monologue.

A Wombat

Maybe that's why you don't have a PhD.