While driving to work this morning, I was listening to classical music and musing on the design of cars and spaceships. I don't mean real spaceships, of course - I mean the kind you see in movies, comic books, pulp fiction and television - the good stuff. I also started thinking about mens' taste in women, and how the styles of disparate things tend to conflate at different times. With that in mind, I decided I was going to put together some images from different years (or small spans of years) of the top spaceship of that time, the top car of that time and what were considered the top sex symbols of that time to see if they clicked.

Here we go ...

We'll begin with 1929 and Buck Rogers. The spaceship was still in the "could have been designed by lonely housewives" era. Fairly sleek and only a few doodads stuck to the outside of the ship. For our car, we have a 1929 Duesenberg - also pretty sleek, formal and yet also sporty. Whether Buck's spaceship had leather seats, I don't know. For our sci-fi beauty, we have Col. Wilma Deering, Buck's erstwhile companion and drawn as a classic beauty of the era - rounded face and graceful lips.

By 1936, Flash Gordon has burst onto the scene in the first of his film adaptations. The spaceship isn't much different than Buck Rogers' craft, though perhaps a bit sportier (check out the chrome!). Dale Arden, as played by Jean Rogers, conforms pretty closely to the earlier beauty standard, and the car isn't terribly different from the 1929 Duesenberg, though you'll note the nose is slanted back a bit.

1950 brought the film classic (?) Destination Moon. Destination Moon at least played on being hard sci-fi, though the design was definitely of the moderne period, with the sleek spacecraft. The beauty of 1950, Erin O'Brien-Moore was pretty sleek herself, and shows how tastes were changing at the dawn of a new decade. The car is a bit more compact than in the 1930's, but in this case it looks like the spaceship designs are beginning to presage developments in automobiles.

In 1956, Forbidden Planet put earthlings in a flying saucer (guess those captured German scientists were finally earning their keep). Beauty isn't much changed from 6 years ago, and the car, a 1956 Chevy Bel Air, is not yet exhibiting the giant fins that will grace vehicles in the late 1950's and early 1960's.

By 1966, Star Trek has premiered. The Enterprise is unlike any spaceship audiences have seen before, and also notable is that the sole beauty of the cast (unless you include Sulu) is a black woman! Nichelle Nichols typified late '60s beauty - curves and tall hair. The cars are becoming more slick as well - away from the tail-fins and into the muscle car era.

The next big leap, in this case back in some ways and forward in others, was 1977's Star Wars (you might have heard of it). For the first time on film, we get a real sense of the "starfighter" - fighter aircraft in space. Yeah, the Star Destroyers were pretty iconic as well, but you really can't beat the X-Wings and TIE Fighters for capturing the imagination of kids in that era. Our beauty is, of course, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), who really found herself thrust into unfamiliar territory in her slave girl costume. The 1977 Ferrari pictures seems to have a similar profile to those X-Wings.

One last stop, and a leap forward to one of my favorite sci-fi series - Red Dwarf. Not American, and played for laughs, it introduced a completely utilitarian (and grandiose) spacecraft in the eponymous Red Dwarf. By 1994, we had maybe my favorite of all the sci-fi beauties introduced on this post - Chloë Annett as Kristine Kochanski (I like my women smart, beautiful and with a wry sense of humor) and the fairly utilitarian Rover. Substance over style in 1994 sci-fi.

Okay, there's many more I could do - various incarnations of Star Trek, Alien, etc. I'll leave further explorations to others.

A World Where Dino's Evolved from Man?

Well, no. Not at all really, but you do need a snappy headline in this blog game.

Some scientists are throwing around the notion that intelligent life on other planets could be of the dinosaur persuasion. They don't really have any evidence, of course, but I think we can all agree that the rigors of scientific accuracy went out the window long ago for some members of the community (i.e. we need a freakin' grant - think of something cool).

Still, it's worth thinking about in terms of writing a sci-fi setting (which this blog is supposedly about). Humans, of course, have the brains, but we also have the thumbs, and that's pretty important if you're going to fashion lasers and rocket ships. On a planet of intelligent dinos, what if none of the dinos with intellect also got the digits to put it to especially good use. They can think and philosophize, but they don't have the tools to dig deeper into the mysteries of the cosmos. Meanwhile, some other branch of the family got the thumbs, but not the sense to use them. So, when planning your sector of Keppler-22B, please give some consideration to super-genius saurpods or just good old fashioned intelligent raptors, won't you.

GIF found at HATE:WRECK:PERIL, along with these dandies ...

These are the Transhumanistas, a biker gang of cybernetic women who roams my sector of K22B

This is the greatest movie ever made (yes, better than Citizen Kane)

These are the silver faced androids of Crux-12, preaching their gospel in my sector of K22B

Go See Your Local Astro-Gnome Dealer

In 1956, Richard Arbib Co., Inc. designed the car of the future. Maybe some enterprising scoundrel is setting up a dealership at Gernsbok Station right now!

Found at LooksLikeACar

World in a Bottle

Many of us who work in the small (like, really small) press know the many joys attached to public domain art. Fortunately for us, NASA went to the trouble of commissioning some super sweet illustrations of life in giant space stations that we, the American people, can all call our own.

Imagine the possibilities in these pictures.

A team of adventurers - sort of special forces types - trying to stop a group of terrorists from destroying a heavily populated station.

A sci-fi espionage game set on such a station - a hero seeking out a seemingly ordinary man who is really a psychic assassin.

Imagine a world teeming with life and controlled by a (benevolent?) God-Computer - something not unlike Metamorphosis Alpha. Mother Computer only wants to keep her children safe, after all.

A ruined space station, life support systems intact as a "megadungeon" to explore - who knows what still lurks within.

How about space station zombie apocalypse? Xenomorphs on the loose? Pod people? The spread of a psychic cult relieving people of their burdensome worries and individuality?

Maybe some smaller versions of these stations are under construction around Kepler 22-B - and not all by the same state. I can imagine various powers constructing rocket bases on the surface to ferry up resources - after all, if one doesn't control the high ground, how can they hope to extend their influence on the planet's surface?

Set Your Wayback Machine to 1960 ...

... and buy this sweet baby at your local food market!

Is it just me, or were toys back in the day pretty dang cool.

Sci-Fi Ephemera I - The Ovocipede

The ovocipede would be a dandy little item for exploration - if we pretend that it works, I mean. I'm picturing explorers - robots especially - in these little bubbles rolling through the plains or a desert, maybe while be chased by some form of alien terror bird.

(Dali's space suit is gold, not silver - just in case you were wondering)

In terms of Space Princess, I'd say super science (DC 20 - the main difficulty being getting the plastic bubble) - "rider" can move at normal speed over land, water, ice, snow, etc. and enjoys a +4 DEF and +2 to tests against environmental hazards. At a super science of DC 25, the ovocipede can be motorized, with a vehicle speed of Slow.

Images found at Kitschy Kitschy Coo