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Subject: "AINA: Extremely Belated Review"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Conferences The Legacy of Korra Topic #78
Reading Topic #78, reply 2
Gryphonadmin
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Aug-13-14, 11:59 AM (EDT)
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2. "RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Aug-13-14 AT 12:05 PM (EDT)
 
>>Mizuzoku Koura, Zipangi national, born April 14, 2372;
>>five foot seven, 142 pounds - he could believe that; she was a sturdy-
>>looking gal, not one of those offputting muscles-on-muscles types, but
>>very nicely cut
>
>That actually seems incredibly light for someone of Korra's size,
>build, and athleticism.

I do research these things occasionally, you know.

>>No criminal record, no wants or warrants, immigration
>>status clear, psion status null, no known danger to public safety,
>>health, or order.
>
>Wow. I'm amazed that whoever passed that data to Zipang in order to
>get that thing issued to Korra did not have their pants catch
>fire
and sink into the swamp. :)

Her only criminal records are in countries ruled by unstable dictators, she doesn't have any wants or warrants, the Republic of Zeta Cygni has no reason to bar her entry adminstratively, she's not telepathic, and... well, she's no danger to public health. The other two are probably debatable.

>>The first thing that struck Korra about the New Avalon Knights
>>was that their tickets were very reasonably priced. The second was that
>>they had a charming (if rather small) ballpark, full of appealing old-
>>fashioned touches and cleverly designed to fit in its peculiarly-shaped
>>lot.
>
>I have to be honest, this seemed a little bit off to me. Korra's
>familiarity with the sport is, as the text itself notes, based
>entirely on cultural contact with Zipang, and given Zipang's own
>cultural context probably all their stadiums are going to be even more
>old-fashioned than Puckett's Field is.

Which prevents her from thinking it's interesting that the field she's at out in the Big Universe is pleasingly old-fashioned how exactly?

>Given New Avalon's staggeringly high incidence of high-powered
>criminals and it being the target of repeated and destructive
>terrorist attacks (although I suppose the latter isn't really a thing
>yet) one can only imagine just how hard Jim Gordon has to work to keep
>the police from going full-militarization.

Neither is really much of a going concern in 2391.

>I'll have more to say about this at the tail end, but I do have to
>note that it seems like Korra really ought to be in possession of a
>smartphone or at the very least a camera.

She rarely thinks of these things, at least right away. There's a phone in her hotel room and she doesn't know anybody who'd be calling her anyway, yet. It didn't seem important.

(She's always been like that. Back in the day, she wouldn't have had a cellphone at all if Asami hadn't invented the things and given her one.)

>>Korra rose early by her standards, meditated for half an hour,
>>had a nice breakfast in the hotel's miniature café, then spent much of
>>the morning with her guidebooks and maps, working some more on her plan
>>(such as it was) for the week.
>
>This also seems odd to me. I guess she hasn't bought a tablet yet? We
>know she's web-conversant, that's established later.

Is a person not allowed to have a way in which she prefers to do these things? Is that just not OK any more? I must have missed that meeting.

(At this rate, I'm surprised you don't take exception to the fact that she bought a notebook and a pen instead of having an opticam and neuroprocessor installed at Cyberz-R-Us in the Avalon Centre Galleria. Get with the times, girl!)

>Style quibble: by the late 2300s "internet" should probably be a
>generic term and no longer a proper noun. It's no longer capitalized
>by many publications right now in the early 2000s, and the movement in
>that direction is only accelerating.

Pfui. I suppose you think "imply" and "infer" may be used interchangeably as well. Just because people are doing it wrong in the real world doesn't mean my fictional future people have to be muppets.

Besides, there's a difference between an internet (which is a particular kind of computer network) and the Internet.

>This also seems weird. That information should all be online, and even
>if it weren't, it seems off that the library itself wouldn't look at
>Korra strangely and gently point her towards a local terminal in which
>all that information was available.

The Avalon County Public Library is not in the habit of looking at its patrons strangely; it is in the habit of fulfilling their requests. Service is what it's all about when you're a public records institution in those parts.

>>Not much of a drinker at her most abandoned,
>>she paced herself carefully, avoiding the appearance of priggishness
>>without getting more than pleasantly high.
>
>This isn't wrong, per se (and I always lose the usage arguments
>anyway) but "high" is an extraordinarily archaic way to refer to
>getting buzzed off alcohol; I don't think it's been in widespread use
>that way since the 60s and 70s.

Would you rather I made up painfully awkward, obviously contrived Future Slang the way they do in cyberpunk-themed RPGs? Chummer.

>Toph and Lin were probably really, really good at being naked
>enforcers of the will of the state.

Only that one time, and they really don't like to talk about it. (Well, Lin doesn't; Toph probably doesn't mind. In fact, she's probably sorry she can't see the photos.) Cactus juice will make a person do weird, weird things if ingested unawares.

>It is now part of my headcanon that Zuse owns a fully-functional
>DECstation that would be entirely capable of compiling CLULESS... and
>that none of the people who would be interested in that fact have any
>idea at all or are in fact even aware of his hobby.

NOTE: DECstations cannot do that. He would need a HoloDECstation. Which don't exist.

>>She was so into the airbending groove at this point, giving
>>priority to reaction and evasion, that the next thing she did was
>>practically automatic. A sudden compression of the air behind her, felt
>>along her back, heralded what could have been a body rushing toward
>>her.
>
>What interests me most about this scene is that it was written well
>before Original Airbenders, in which basically the exact same
>thing happens, aired.

And Korra didn't even have to shave her head to get it to work.

>unless those firearms his boys were sporting were unlicensed
>and unregistered.

>May I express the hope that this is Teen Titans-the-tv-show Slade, who
>is actually a competently used and moderately scary villain, and not
>comic-book Deathstroke, who DC has been trying, and failing, to make
>into an a-lister for going on fifteen years now?

Sort of neither, but closer to the former. (Colonel Slade of the UF Sky Raiders is kind of a cross between Slade from Teen Titans and Colonel Duray of the City of Heroes Sky Raiders.)

It ought to tell you everything you need to know about my attitude to the latter that not only doesn't he exist in UF, his canonical daughter Rose is a) Deadpool's daughter and b) much funnier. (I mean, she likes to be called "Rosie the Ravager", what more do you need? :)

>However, to be fair to Zuse, I actually think he got the better of
>Korra here when she tried to shake him down. Transparisteel is nothing
>special, if Known Space-UF is anything like Star Wars in terms of
>production and usage. Zuse can probably buy it in long tons from any
>one of a dozen suppliers dirt cheap. It's a bit like a native shaking
>someone down for shiny beads or iron hatchets.

It's not intended to be a profitable shakedown; it's a gesture. Making him do a little legwork and come across with a few goods in order to see if he's do-business-with-able. And it may be a relatively commonplace material (it's probably duracrys or klaster, not transparisteel), but that doesn't mean it's cheap. Not the high-optical-quality kind, anyway. Anyway, she's not trying to rip him off, she's just seeing if he can come across on a legitimate deal. If he can, her contacts at the other end will start buying the stuff through him. She's basically seeing if he can give him an incentive to go legit. First the stick, then the rutacarrot. :)

>>She decided the jumpsuit she'd been wearing when she got to town
>>was too industrial, her T-shirt and jeans too casual, and the clothes
>>she'd worn clubbing too sporty.
>
>I love how Korra thinks the t-shirt and jeans are gonna be too casual
>for Gryphon. I mean, yes, she doesn't know better yet; if I were gonna
>go meet Gryphon for the first time I'd put on nice clothes as well.
>But depending on the quality of the t-shirt and jeans, especially if
>they're label, throwing them on gives you a decent chance of being
>better-dressed than the Man Himself.

True, but like the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression; and besides, as the narration itself notes nearby, Korra feels most like herself when she's dressed like she is on her original model sheet. :)

>She doesn't have that; she's on her own,
>a long way from home, and I think she's a bit melancholic about that
>fact.

More than a bit, I suspect, though she covers it well. By 2390, Korra's life is a pretty lonely place even when she's not exploring an alien world. It's 102 years since she moved to Republic City, her original team is long gone, and (as she notes after the nightclub scene) she's sort of between peer groups at the moment. If she were the sort of person who does things like that, she'd have taken to wandering the streets of Republic City at night, singing "Raymond Chandler Evening" by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians softly to herself.

It's a Raymond Chandler evening
And the pavements are all wet
And I'm lurking in the shadows
'Cause it hasn't happened yet

>Her behavior and
>comfort levels change visibly the instant she starts making connection
>with people she can actually talk to.

Well, it's like Kyoshi told her in the flashback in What's Past Is Prologue - she derives most of her strength from community.

(Meanwhile, I had someone else complaining that Korra wanting to go clubbing with some local kids instead of just reading Fodor's was weird and implausible. There is no winning in this place.)

>The critical: hmm. How to put this.
>
>I hit on this a number of times in my play-by-play, and I'm trying to
>be diplomatic rather than blunt, because I don't like to sound
>blame-y. But New Avalon seems like... a very un-futuristic version of
>the future.

Mm. Supposed to be.

>It has that kind of "this is a very dated version of what
>people thought the future would be like" feel that you often get when,
>say, watching old episodes of Star Trek or if you've ever walked
>through Tommorrowland at a Disney park.

I congratulate you on your perspicacity, sir.

>It often seems like they're operating in a
>late-eighties technological and social mileau, just with starships and
>lasers and things bolted onto it.

Ah, the circularity of the Internet. Phil Thorne was gigging me about this on these boards 12 years ago, and I told him the same thing: It's designed that way. The UF universe in the 25th century is the future of the past.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 AINA: Extremely Belated Review [View All] Mercutio Aug-13-14 TOP
   RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Nova Floresca Aug-13-14 1
  RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Gryphonadmin Aug-13-14 2
      RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Nova Floresca Aug-13-14 6
      RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Mercutio Aug-14-14 9
          RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Gryphonadmin Aug-14-14 10
              RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review BobSchroeck Aug-14-14 14
              RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Mercutio Aug-15-14 17
                  RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Gryphonadmin Aug-15-14 19
   RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Pasha Aug-13-14 3
      RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review pjmoyermoderator Aug-13-14 4
          RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review eriktown Aug-13-14 5
              RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Matrix Dragon Aug-13-14 7
      RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Mercutio Aug-15-14 18
          RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Gryphonadmin Aug-15-14 20
              RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Matrix Dragon Aug-15-14 21
                  RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Blackbird Aug-15-14 24
          RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Pasha Aug-15-14 22
              RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Gryphonadmin Aug-16-14 26
                  RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Peter Eng Aug-17-14 28
          RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review McFortner Aug-16-14 25
   RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Matrix Dragon Aug-13-14 8
   RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review drakensis Aug-14-14 11
      RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Mercutio Aug-14-14 12
          RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review SpottedKitty Aug-14-14 15
              RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review drakensis Aug-15-14 16
              RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review SneakyPete Aug-18-14 29
   RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Peter Eng Aug-14-14 13
      RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review Terminus Est Aug-15-14 23
          RE: AINA: Extremely Belated Review SpottedKitty Aug-16-14 27


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