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Star Ship Polaris

I'll fall back for now on the couple of paragraphs that accompanied our casting announcement for Gaitanis, back in October 2009:

Humanity has not discovered an abundance of “new Earths” orbiting other stars - most worlds upon which human beings can live at all are barely habitable. The emigrants from Earth - not all of them voluntary pioneers - who’ve populated the mining worlds and marginal factory planets have adapted themselves through genetic surgery and technological enhancements to survive in places inimicable to life itself. Now a new cadre of leaders have arisen on these worlds, harnessing ages of resentment and rebellion to form the Transhuman Authority and launch a war of conquest against Earth and its United Worlds allies.


You know, there is almost a sort of moral behind this. 'Take care of what you allow to be sown, otherwise it might come back to haunt you'

By allowing people to be "Shanghaied" to work as slaves, and allowing colonists to be taken advantage of by those who ran the colonies, the United Worlds allowed events to take place that would lead to war. They could have prevented the Transhuman Authority from coming into existence or growing so powerful if they had implemented better peacekeeping policies, better supported all colonies, and better enforced the rights of individuals.
 
Another moral might be: Watch out for genetically engineered megalomaniacs who want to build evil empires and come back to conquer and rule their "inferior" progenitors. ;)
 
The movie "The Forbin Project" (AKA the book "Colossus") and the recent book "Robopacalypse" (I just KNOW I spelled that wrong) come to mind. The computers/robots, built by man, come to see themselves as the successor to man and seek to wipe out their creators. Interesting concept. Can't wait until this comes out. While I have been following its progress in the Fan Productions section, I am not really aware of the details. There are many tight lips on this project (kind of like the new Batman movie, which I have been assured is NOT filming in Pittsburgh).
 
You know, there is almost a sort of moral behind this. 'Take care of what you allow to be sown, otherwise it might come back to haunt you'

By allowing people to be "Shanghaied" to work as slaves, and allowing colonists to be taken advantage of by those who ran the colonies, the United Worlds allowed events to take place that would lead to war. They could have prevented the Transhuman Authority from coming into existence or growing so powerful if they had implemented better peacekeeping policies, better supported all colonies, and better enforced the rights of individuals.

Good thoughts. A little bit more of the backstory here, though;

The outbreak of galactic war a decade ago transformed the loose trade confederacy of the United Worlds into a military alliance with what remains of Earth’s once vast empire. Most officers serving aboard Polaris are either recruits from local planetary fleets or graduates of officer training programs established in the first years of the war.

The rebel settlements were part of Earth's expansion, not the United Worlds. The UW is itself composed of settlement worlds which threw off Earth's administration more-or-less peacefully, probably about twenty to thirty years before our story.
 
While I have been following its progress in the Fan Productions section, I am not really aware of the details. There are many tight lips on this project...

Thanks for your interest!

We are putting some stuff out there as it becomes available. I've really never been interested in launching stuff like a teaser trailer until we actually have the show substantially in hand and have a good sense of a release date.

In addition to the producer's blog, we do have a Facebook page which should be accessible here.
 
Another moral might be: Watch out for genetically engineered megalomaniacs who want to build evil empires and come back to conquer and rule their "inferior" progenitors. ;)

I think that if they had been better treated in the first place, instead of being used to the point that they felt that they were being treated unfairly, the leaders of the Transhuman Authority wouldn't have been able to convince them to revolt against Earth and the apparently more loyal or affluent colonies. I see a parallel between this and how the Nazis and Fascists rose to power right before WWII by using the common feeling of discontent of the masses.
 
There are certainly intentional, if broad and simplified, parallels between our fictional backstory and several hundred years of history.

None of which gets discussed too much in the show...well, Gaitanis has a few things to say to Fredericks during an interrogation.
 
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Not to derail this into a sociology debate, but it's not always necessary for people to actually be mistreated or oppressed in order for a charismatic leader to convince them that they are, gin up a lot of resentment people never even knew they had, and then harness it for their own ends. Throw in a genetic superiority complex, a sense of manifest destiny, and a voila! You've got a rampaging evil empire bent on world--or galactic--conquest.

Sure, it's possible that if the colonists had been treated better the Transhuman Authority would never have arisen. It's also possible a future version of Hitler would have brought it into existence anyway based on lies and propaganda.

Either way, I can tell you that the Transhuman Authority as portrayed in the Polaris script isn't just looking for a reasonable redress of grievances, it's out for nothing less than the conquest and extermination of what it considers an obsolete form of humanity.
 
They have a pretty stark philosophy of how the Universe works, that much is for certain. By the time people go to war - particularly on this kind of scale - I think they're usually beyond looking for what detached observers would call a reasonable solution or even justice.

To fight someone to the bitter end you have to demonize them - the enemy deserves to be destroyed. Where that anger comes from for folks defending themselves against invaders is obvious, but how people become invaders is something else again.

Whether the losers in the Great War deserved to suffer as a result of it is something people might differ on. It seems to me unlikely, though, that if they weren't suffering that they'd have been easily organized and led by extremists like the Nazis. Grievance had to exist in order to be channeled and magnified; if the existing order is feeding you and treating you well, your inclination is to preserve rather than upend it.

In any event, the bad guys in the story can be bad guys but it's useful if they're bad guys with motives. Good and evil in Star Wars is about as simplistic as it gets, yet it turns out that even Palpatine seems to have thought his kind had been getting the short end of the stick. :lol:
 
Thanks for your interest!

We are putting some stuff out there as it becomes available. I've really never been interested in launching stuff like a teaser trailer until we actually have the show substantially in hand and have a good sense of a release date.

In addition to the producer's blog, we do have a Facebook page which should be accessible here.[/QUOTE]


In my opinion, that's a good philosophy. Too often I see teasers released when the project is too much in it's infancy. A poster is more than enough. That being said, "Polaris" sounds like a very interesting project. And if the rest of the team is putting half the effort into their parts as you have into developing your model, it should be stellar. I'm truly looking forward to it. :-)
 
New take on the windows:



NOTE: If you click the image above, you can view it full-size at the resolution I've been using to create it.

I've slightly reduced the number of windows and made them less random. I also inset them slightly with a surrounding "divot" to give them more character and make them seem less like they were just painted on. I even went to the trouble of roughly sketching the underlying superstructure to make sure the windows would not conflict with it; however, I have only superficially tried to coordinate them with Aridas' original cross-section deck layout. I was more concerned with making them look good from the outside.

Unless Dennis or someone else comes up with a better idea, this is probably final for the windows.
 
and made them less random.
This is a good thing, I think.
I also inset them slightly with a surrounding "divot" to give them more character and make them seem less like they were just painted on.
It's a substantial improvement from last time.

Will you have the color of the interior lighting show in the windows?
 
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I keep saying it, this thing is a thing of beauty. I wish I had a model of it for my model collection. So awesome.

--Alex
 
would the word 'polaris' near the front/top area make more sense if it was rotated 90 degrees clockwise?
 
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