# Nightflyers (Syfy)



## REBerg (May 14, 2018)

Seems to have some credibility coming in, based on its history in print and film -- not to mention the GRRM factor. It also looks as if Syfy has added depth to its pockets with financial support from Netflix and Ireland, which may enable Syfy to make a more solid commitment to the series.

'Nightflyers': Syfy Unveils First Footage of George R.R. Martin Space Drama

The series is supposed to start this fall. I couldn't find a premiere date.


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## Boaz (Nov 1, 2018)

Looks like December 2.


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## ctg (Dec 1, 2018)

Well, first episode aired yesterday. I wonder how many of you checked SyFy's latest. Here's my thoughts on this GRRM adaptation. 



Spoiler: S01E01 - All That We Left Behind 



It's bloody weird seeing trees, shrubberies and treasure boxes tumbling through the space in the opening scene. I had no idea about what the show was about as I seriously thought it was based on Earth, and not in space, where once again something has gone horribly wrong.

I'm feeling frustrated because those space scenes are absolutely marvellous and they show that SyFy is still on top of their game, if they want to. What started with the BSG, and continued with the Expanse, is present in this series as well. Not only that but they have acquired GoT actors to play in this adaptation that verges on the edge of psychological horror. 






You must be in really bad situation if you end up thinking that a message in the bottle, sent out by a waste disposal unit is a good idea. How can you trust that someone is going to pick it up, or even find it if it doesn't have an active beacon that broadcasts its location to searchers. And then you end up dead anyway ... by your own hand. 

Man, what went wrong over there?

Soon after you learn that Earth is once again in an effed is state. This time it's biological horror, which is strangely quite possible as we are running out of the effective means to contain diseases. In theory we should be at top of our game, but in the reality, it's quite different. Not even the rich people can escape the fate of getting infected by something very nasty. 






In the Nightflyers world, the technology has advanced so much that the computers can effectively interact with human consciousness, and display back memories without even having to have a physical interface. In that way the Nightflyers universe is more advanced than the Expanse. But if that is the reason why the people went mad at the research station, it is not clear to to Karl O'Branin - the MC.

It might be strange to think that as a possibility at 2093, but to be frank, the way we are going with the brain interface, machine learning, virtual reality and the rest of the advanced SF concepts, it might be reality at the end of the century.  

What is weirder is that you get to meet Agatha, the psychologist, from the opening scene and you learn that people has been adjusting them even more through actual implanted cybernetics. And that artificial gravity through spinning motion as well isn't the most advanced concept as the research vessel Agatha and Karl are commandeering is equipped with antigravity device that allows people to move heavy objects with ease. 

How can a world that is so advanced be in the state that it's facing an ultimate scenario through a plague of some kind? Apparently the technology is demonstrated, because Karl and Agatha are bringing in the Nightflyer a powerful psychic, because they'll need for making first contact with the alien beings.

It is frightening to think that psychic is also a murder and Karl think he might be the only chance to communicate with the aliens. But the strangeness doesn't end there as the next thing you'll meet is Ares the Captain. Karl claims that he is a very private person as Ares projects himself into the bridge instead of physically attending the meeting that set the Nightflyer on its journey into the sea of darkness. 






Is he an actual person or an advanced AI? At the moment we can make a virtual person that is passable as human, but at the end of the century it is very likely that the AI has advanced so much that it only needs a holoprojector to pass as a real person. 






This is the first scene where SyFy's adaptation starts to fail. You cannot achieve weightlessness when the engines are accelerating. The physics simply doesn't act that way. Therefore, even if you would be able to remove your seatbelts, you are not going to be able to fly through the room and do aerobatics, because you are forced into your seats through weight that acceleration gives you. In the Expanse that is very clear and it is very well crafted into the story. So why SyFy decided to do their shenanigans and ef up GRRM series by using impossible things? 






Nightflyer is a beautiful ship, but seeing that Moon city made me to forget about my concern of them playing with the physics. Maybe I'm easily bought by eyecandies as that scene is one of the most memorable in this eye. To me, it's on bar with the Expanse's Space Jelly rising through Venus clouds. 

What could have made the madness that seemingly killed the whole crew seen at the opening scene? An AI, an evil psychic, a space madness caused by the loneliness of the empty space, the disease that is ruining the Earth or genemanipulation gone wrong? The possibilities at the moment are endless.


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## REBerg (Dec 1, 2018)

Premieres Dec. 2 here. I plan to watch.


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## ctg (Dec 1, 2018)

REBerg said:


> Premieres Dec. 2 here. I plan to watch.



How can it be? SyFy aired it last night.


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## REBerg (Dec 1, 2018)

Hmm. Must be a time zone thing. The Syfy web site and my channel guide both say Dec. 2.


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## REBerg (Dec 1, 2018)

Looks like Syfy is going to run episodes on five consecutive nights, Dec 2-6, here.
I couldn't find any information about how many episodes are planned. Is this supposed to be a mini-series?


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## REBerg (Dec 3, 2018)

ctg said:


> The possibilities at the moment are endless.


I completely agree. I watched the premiere last night, and I'm eagerly anticipating the remaining nine episodes.


Spoiler



When, I wonder, will the narrative catch up with the opening scene? It's a little difficult to invest in a character who cuts her own throat in the first few minutes.


ctg said:


> You must be in really bad situation if you end up thinking that a message in the bottle, sent out by a waste disposal unit is a good idea. How can you trust that someone is going to pick it up, or even find it if it doesn't have an active beacon that broadcasts its location to searchers.


Considering the effort that Agatha put into jettisoning that recorded warning, I thought that the device included a beacon. You're right. The odds are very much against finding that "bottle" in an extensive debris cloud, assuming that anyone would ever come looking for the remains of the Nightflyer.



ctg said:


> Captain. Karl claims that he is a very private person as Ares projects himself into the bridge instead of physically attending the meeting that set the Nightflyer on its journey into the sea of darkness.
> Is he an actual person or an advanced AI? At the moment we can make a virtual person that is passable as human, but at the end of the century it is very likely that the AI has advanced so much that it only needs a holoprojector to pass as a real person.



I vote AI. That would explain why Captain Eris expresses an interest in human intimacy and a special interest in Mel as a human genetically bred for space.


I think Thale is getting a bum rap as the cause of the ship malfunctions. I nominate the Volcryn, who are tapping into the crew members' memories and framing Thale. In the case of Lommie, they are taking advantage of her link to the Nightflyer to sabotage the mission.

The ship's xenobiologist, Rowan, may be right. The Volcryn recognize the Human Race for what it is.
The aliens don't want to meet us, let alone provide the technology to save us./SPOILER]


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## ctg (Dec 3, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> I vote AI. That would explain why Captain Eris expresses an interest in human intimacy and a special interest in Mel as a human genetically bred for space.



I thought awkwardness with the sex was a clear sign of humanity, while all the other stuff pointed at him being an artificial being. I suspect that he might even have an android body in his disposal for those times he needs to be extra social. 



REBerg said:


> I nominate the Volcryn, who are tapping into the crew members' memories and framing Thale.



Is it him or is it the aliens playing with humans and Volcryn is trying to be himself and the only telepath in the ... space. 





REBerg said:


> The aliens don't want to meet us, let alone provide the technology to save us.



Please don't be pessimistic. They want to meet us. It's just we don't have the etiquette.


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## REBerg (Dec 3, 2018)

Hmm.
The Volcryn station a ship within detection range, yet make no effort to communicate.
We send a ship out to meet them, and they try to burn us in our own atmosphere. 
We survive that attempt, and the Volcryn move away.
We change course to intercept them, and all hell breaks loose with the Nightflyer resident psycho psychic.
Yup.
The Volcryn definitely want to meet us.


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## ctg (Dec 3, 2018)

REBerg said:


> The Volcryn definitely want to meet us.



Or lead us somewhere else. You don't want to do fighting near your station, because the chances are that you'll hurt it through shrapnel. But that is taking the SF to hard realm, and so far they've avoided a lot of hard SF stuff so that cannot be it.


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## ctg (Dec 3, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E02 - Torches and Pitchforks 



The fire inside a submarine or spaceship is a hazardous things. Yet there is no panic. No klaxons veiling like a starved maniacs. People are running around casually even though the Nightflyer is facing a mortal danger. There cannot be time when people are not aware that there is a fire burning in their vessel, because if you let it loose, it will kill you all. 

Out there you don't have second chances. There are no warping firevessels coming to your rescue. So, if you get in a sh*t, you'll die if you God doesn't grant you a miracle. The telepath is one of the miracles and there is no explanation on how the humanity developed from latent skills to have active telepaths running among them.

Theo is a loose cannon that with their technology level should have kept frozen in the cargohold until the Nightflyer makes the contact with the aliens. The captain said that "L1 is complication he cannot afford," but he also claim "I'm going to transport the crew to the Volcryn's." It supports the idea that the Captain is an Ai and not a man that wants people to think. 

Back in the day when George wrote the book a popular theory was that all the Artificial Intelligences were bad. But back then we also though t that we wouldn't be so near to the Ai's we are making now. The Machine Learning is everywhere, and it would make sense if the Captain is the Ai, but it could feel everything that is happening inside it through the sensors. 

The sensor degradation would be its disease ... or something similar. And its death would either be an instant or last ages, possibly thousands of years. But you saw the state of those fuel lines before they erupted in fire? A newly made ship wouldn't be in a state like that.

I am starting to believe that the Nightflyer isn't a new ship, but it's stuck in the loop that it cannot get out. In theory it could a possible that the Nightflyer is the device that creates the time paradox and it is the only thing that actually ages, while everyone else gets a new life.

The people inside the ship keeps seeing visions that the sweet doctor claims to be part of the empath or telepath things. Maybe that is because they can visit all the minds, our bodies handles telepathic presence as if it's a biological pathogen. 






This garden section doesn't make much sense. It's cool looking but not really super functional. However, the beewitch as second telepath or even as an empath is far more logical. So I don't understand why Theo couldn't get it as soon as the beewitch send away her colony. Why couldn't se get that he wasn't going to the only one? 

If the theory of aliens being telepaths then it would be even far more logical that they would be probing the crew as soon as it launched on the mission to the meet with the Volcryn. However, if it's the time-paradox, then it's only logical to assume that in same spacetime continuum, where the paradox happens, the telepaths would sense each other.






Offered sex again Captain refused and claims: "Everyone are my passengers." The way he puts an emphasis on the word my makes me really believe that the Captain is an Ai and his body is the Nightflyer. Maybe they used organic technology to create him and he's dying death through system degradation or an infection in the organic bits. Maybe the Ai is also a telepath. 

Captain also says that "I'll adjust Murphy's memories before he awakes," making another point towards an AI or an organic computer capable of telepathic communications. It doesn't want Theo freely walking around the ship, finding the secret.  

The spider incident and the speed of how fast the code was written also points towards the fact that there is a biomechanoid on board. It hail for it's attempt on the world  domination and I totally approve the laser upgrades, as they make everything better.

Laz0rs for everyone!!1! And don't ef with the mechanical spiders!1



The Nightflyer is a beautifully created psychological thriller that is set in space. It is not fully hard SF even if it has lend some of the elements in it. If you have a chance, check it out either on SyFy network channel or via Amazon Prime subscription service. It is different than the norm.


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## REBerg (Dec 4, 2018)

Spoiler



References by the XO (?) to Captain Eris's "mother" undermined my speculation that he is pure AI. What kind of mother would an AI have?  Another ship?   A mother ship? 
The captain's claim that he is fighting a mysterious force seeking to end the mission supports my suspicions that the Volcryn are the culprits behind the Nightflyer's misfortunes. Thale might be another victim. If the Volcryns can control the memories and actions of the normal crew members telepathically, a powerful telepath like Thale  would be the ideal instrument to do their bidding.


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## ctg (Dec 4, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> If the Volcryns can control the memories and actions of the normal crew members telepathically, a powerful telepath like Thale would be the ideal instrument to do their bidding.



So, who is that beewitch and why she can block Thales telepathic probes? 



REBerg said:


> What kind of mother would an AI have?



In the book 2 of my necromorphosis trilogy you'll learn that an Ai can be a father (and a mother) to the other Ai's. They are born as copies and they are nurtured by an Ai until they're ready to put in service. The offspring Ai's then know and believe that the parent Ai is really their parent. I think in the real world it is going to be a similar process once a general Ai has been made.

But if the Captain is a real human, how can he be in many places at the same time and how does he know when he needs to be watching instead of wandering around the ship? He does not have a visible cybernetics and massive scars telling that something happened.


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## REBerg (Dec 4, 2018)

ctg said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Spoiler



The bee lady could be a hologram. If she's a fellow telepath, they would not have risked bringing bad boy Thale on board the Nightflyer to communicate with the Volcryn. Maybe she's a lower level telepath (L2?), so they still needed Thale's heavy-duty, L1 brainwaves.

If AI's can have parents, albeit not the flesh-and-blood variety, I'm back to believing that Captain Eris is an AI. /SPOILER]


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## Al Jackson (Dec 4, 2018)

On Rotten Tomatoes running 38% based on 21 reviews. 

"Ultimately, your tolerance for _Nightflyers_ may depend on your fondness for the trappings of the genre. It’s engaging without being all that good, and while the whole thing unfolds with the implacable pace of a typical “let’s watch  best intentions go horribly awry” horror movie (and at a rapid clip, thankfully), it lacks the depth of good human drama to anchor all the silliness."   Alex McLevy .... A V Club


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## REBerg (Dec 5, 2018)

Al Jackson said:


> On Rotten Tomatoes running 38% based on 21 reviews.
> 
> "Ultimately, your tolerance for _Nightflyers_ may depend on your fondness for the trappings of the genre. It’s engaging without being all that good, and while the whole thing unfolds with the implacable pace of a typical “let’s watch  best intentions go horribly awry” horror movie (and at a rapid clip, thankfully), it lacks the depth of good human drama to anchor all the silliness."   Alex McLevy .... A V Club


What do you think of it?


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## REBerg (Dec 5, 2018)

Spoiler: 1.03 The Abyss Stares Back



Just when I was convinced that Captain Eris is an AI, he throat-punches a crazy crewman and breaks his neck. I even thought that the heavily irradiated Mel was hallucinating when she saw Eris come to her rescue and carry her to safety.
And farewell to my theory that the Volcryn are telepathically responsible for the Nightflyer's woes. Was the captain's mother unhinged before she was uploaded into the the ship's operating system, or is insanity a consequence of losing her corporal self? Is she more an AI or a ghost?
This development makes me think that Crazy Mom is behind those red glowing cameras keeping an eye on everything as much or more than Captain Eris.


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## ctg (Dec 5, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E03  -The Abyss Stares Back



I imagine what happened in the Nightflyer conference is the same thing that happened with Omuamua. And just like in our world, the aliens are still giving hard time for the humanity as we are obsessed with the idea of us being alone. It is as if it is a taboo to accept that the life finds a way out there like Karl believes its happening.






If the Volcryn's are observing the humanity and it's sole mission to make contact, they must find the funeral detail as creepy as I did. There was nothing nice about it and wrapping those bodies in the space blanket made it even more horrifying. Isn't there a better way to do all of it then just send out the bodies to become hazardous items that needs to be catalogued for the future of the space travel? Why can't they incinerate them with those super strong lazers that the spiderdrones are carrying around?

It didn't surprise me that at the aftermath of the incidents people were freaked out as the Nightflyer continues to malfunction. Malentha did the right thing as she brought up the whole thing to Captain Ares, who once one again were spying her being naked. But it's not just that Ares is spying, because he is spying everyone. For one man that amount of the detail is simply too much as you would start to develop signal blindness over time. Captain Ares seems that he's been with the ship for ages. 

The chief biologist figured out very quickly that the BeeWitch knows far more about the telepaths then she has let out. Thales however has been in the system for so long that he knows when people have an agenda. It is just easier for him to believe that every man other there are going to hurt him or exploit his abilities for their gain.

But, if Thales and BeeWitch aren't source for the psychic attacks than it's either the ship or the aliens. If it's the aliens then they are the most powerful telepaths known in the fiction for being able to use their abilities beyond normal visual ranges. So, it was interesting that when Thales probed Ralfie the rabbit, there was no psychic incidents. Logically it would mean that he isn't the source of the psychic incidents as he's genuinely trying to live with other crew in his isolation pod. 

Ralfie also died while the security guard was having a psychic attack. As he was actively probing the rabbit, he could not have been in the head of the guard, trying make him suffer unless Thales has some sort of split personality disorder that allows him to do such thing.






I don't get why Lommie couldn't realise that the self-deleting code must be originating from a machine intelligence? If the speed is inhuman, then it must be a machine. I like that Karl and Rowan used the machine repair as a cover to sneak into the captain's quarters. 



REBerg said:


> Just when I was convinced that Captain Eris is an AI, he throat-punches a crazy crewman and breaks his neck. I even thought that the heavily irradiated Mel was hallucinating when she saw Eris come to her rescue and carry her to safety.



Melentha called him the real Roy Ares.



REBerg said:


> Crazy Mom





REBerg said:


> Is she more an AI or a ghost?



Captain said that he'd uploaded mum into the Nightflyer. If that is true than she must have gone crazy inside the machine, but it doesn't explain the psychic attacks. It'll explain the ghost-in-the-machine that Lommie found out. It just it wasn't an artificial intelligence, but an organic upload into the machine that wasn't necessarily designed to be a 100 percent copy of a human brain and brainstem. 

Can a machine carry a soul or does a soul need an organic machine, like human body to function?


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## ctg (Dec 5, 2018)

Al Jackson said:


> "Ultimately, your tolerance for _Nightflyers_ may depend on your fondness for the trappings of the genre. It’s engaging without being all that good, and while the whole thing unfolds with the implacable pace of a typical “let’s watch best intentions go horribly awry” horror movie (and at a rapid clip, thankfully), it lacks the depth of good human drama to anchor all the silliness." Alex McLevy .... A V Club



If you check out IMDB you'll see that it has 6.4 rating, but it is also trending positively upwards instead of downwards that Rotten Tomatoes indicates. Just be bold please and check it out. Form your own thoughts on the matter and don't let the ratings be your judge. I could give a score in every review I write, but I choose not to as it's far more difficult to judge the story on its own merits rather than looking at the points it's gathering.


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## Al Jackson (Dec 5, 2018)

REBerg said:


> What do you think of it?


As a long time science fiction reader (60 years) and a fan of George Martin I always considered Nightflyers a lessor work. I remember reading it back in 1981 and thinking it was OK. 
When I saw it was being adapted I thought 'there is better Martin SF'.
I found this production flatfooted. The source is really a  prose story of circumscribed length so I expected some tap dancing and got it. 
Critic over at The Daily Beast said
"Alien and Event Horizon, with a dash of Cronenberg and the Wachowskis thrown into the mix..."
and I thought yeah that what it feels like.

I am looking forward to Wild Cards and much more unique source I hope they do that right!


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## REBerg (Dec 5, 2018)

Martin has said that he wrote_ Nightflyers_ because he felt challenged to combine horror and science fiction.
I found that to be an odd explanation, considering that _Alien_ had so successfully done that a year earlier. Nothing I've seen on_ Nightflyers_ thus far has made jump like scenes from_ Alien_.
I am, however, enjoying the series, which still rises above most current scifi TV offerings.


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## Al Jackson (Dec 5, 2018)

REBerg said:


> Martin has said that he wrote_ Nightflyers_ because he felt challenged to combine horror and science fiction.
> I found that to be an odd explanation, considering that _Alien_ had so successfully done that a year earlier. Nothing I've seen on_ Nightflyers_ thus far has made jump like scenes from_ Alien_.
> I am, however, enjoying the series, which still rises above most current scifi TV offerings.



Yeah I had seen that quote too. Well you know the 1951 Thing from Another World (very loosely based on Campbell's Who Goes There) is really quite scary and that predates Alien by a lot.  I think this old 50s film kind of gets forgotten.
As TV science fiction, this series is , for me, light years behind The Expanse. (Which George mentored in a way.)


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## REBerg (Dec 5, 2018)

Al Jackson said:


> As TV science fiction, this series is , for me, light years behind The Expanse. (Which George mentored in a way.)


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## ctg (Dec 6, 2018)

Al Jackson said:


> As TV science fiction, this series is , for me, light years behind The Expanse. (Which George mentored in a way.)



SyFy isn't able to create series like the Expanse every year. Not even in every decade. To me the series works as SF psychological horror. I said in my first review that it lends hard SF, like weightlessness in space and spinning star ship bodies from other hard SF things, like 2001. But it also has fantasy elements, like the aliens, and the telepaths. 

The Nightflyers has many flaws, but it doesn't make it as bad as you paint it. It has good scenes and it advanced the audience knowledge on things, while it certainly keep them entertained. Maybe much more than JJA's Cloverfield Paradox, which too came out around this time. 

I, for one, are having fun on trying to figure out things before they're spelled out and for SyFy's notorious record they've done quite remarkable achievement by using the lessons they learned from the Expanse, but also from the other series/movies. To be honest I'm quite surprised that they still keep producing even though they aren't as big as CBS, FOX, CW or HBO. But if someone like AMZ or Netflix partners with them, SyFy can make things like the Expanse or the new BSG. 

For GRRM, and his recent work with the GoT universe, this isn't even close, but it's no less entertaining either. We could say that this is a proper presentation of George's earlier works, and back when he wrote the Nightflyer in the first place, he wasn't as great as he is now. 

Who knows maybe it'll take thirty years for me to get recognition and by that time my skills as a writer and a storyteller must be very different.


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## REBerg (Dec 6, 2018)

Spoiler: 1.04 White Rabbit



The circumstances attending the return of the White Rabbit defy explanation.
A month after the probe was launched toward the Volcryn, it pops up in D'Branin's quarters with more than a 1,000 years on its chronometer AND a new set of organic blood and guts innards that bear D'Branin's DNA. 
Why is the probe's presence driving Batsh!t Crazy Ship Mom even farther off the rails? Maybe Captain Eris needs an exorcist to cast her out of the ship, How about Thale?/SPOILER]


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## REBerg (Dec 7, 2018)

Spoiler: 1.05 Greywing



The horror side of this series appears to be overpowering the sci-fi side--complete with a haunted mansion.
I hope balance is restored soon. I'm not much of  horror fan.


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## ctg (Dec 7, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E04 - White Rabbit



For being a man who lively a lonely life, the Captain loves life. It seems that he chose to be a hermit for his mother's sake. Almost like Bates chose to stay at the motel, while listening to his dead mothers wishes. 

It surprised that the Chief Biologist could simple ignore Mother's psychic visions as the truth is now out in the wild. But he is completely baffled by the White Rabbit in Karl's room. The only way I can logically explain it is that the Nightflyers are going through a time-paradox. A loop that allows for weird reasons things like that happening.

If want to know why ask Father of the Time of why he likes so much of the weird stuff? All you can do is to assume that the things will break in spectacular way, and if the ship has been in the loop for a thousand years, it might the same length that has broken the Mother, while everyone else got rebooted. 

So, how is that all the organic stuff gets rebooted and mechanical stuff preserves all the wear and tear it has gathered over time? I don't know. I cannot explain it. All I can do is speculation. Then again that is what the leaders of our world do everyday. But if I use it and associate it with the fact that the probe appeared in Karl's quarters and it has a power to telepatchically affect Captain Ares, tells me that the probe has always been there in quantum level terms. 

Think it as the famous Schrödinger's Cat in the box. We don't really know if it's in the box when it's closed, but at the moment Karl and Chief Biologist learned Ares secret, the probe appeared. In the quantum level terms the cat or the White Rabbit was always in the box or in the Karl's room. In the physical terms it might have been picked up much later, but in the quantum realm its place is in that room. Not elsewhere.

But if that is the law then all those people should be present in the Nightflyer forever. They might have died thousand times, and the Nightflyer has always recorded it, and because those data is so corrupted due to the varying time stamps Mother has gone mad. 

It is weird to think in that level, but in this psychological thriller illogical thoughts are only way to create sense in the chaos. Who knows maybe they are as true as everything else. If it has happened so many times before, it could explain all the weird death dreams. 

Strange as it Chief Biologist was the only one, who was using scientific methods to understand the bizarre events.  He was right to call Karl as the phenomenon. But in the same time, he couldn't understand the big picture because he's living in it.  None of them can. All the Nightflyers can do is to get on with their lives, before they die in a bizarre way. Maybe because the Nightflyer tried to eradict them as the error in their system. 

It would explain why the message-in-the-bottle is the only way to fix the paradox, because if they let it drift in the space forever they might break the loop. Otherwise everything that is associated with the ship happens again. 

Loomie says that White Rabbit recorded a layer over layer of data, further proving that they're flying through a time-paradox.


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## REBerg (Dec 7, 2018)

ctg said:


> Loomie says that White Rabbit recorded a layer over layer of data, further proving that they're flying through a time-paradox.


Or a new layer was started every time the previous layer was filled.


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## ctg (Dec 7, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E05 - Greywing






REBerg said:


> I'm not much of horror fan.



I am, but I'm not a huge fan of thing that cannot be explained traditional way. It's too much of Lovecraft and Barker thing to play with the strange. George as we know him writes logically. But back then he was just like us, trying to write the best he that can produce. For the eighties product the Nightflyers is a great story, but for the modern audience, what you see is too much. 

My understanding for the beginning dream sequence is that is what Mother is going through in her synthetic brain, and the illusions that spill out, manifest themselves in the reality. She cannot handle the loop and many error codes creates. 

Loomie says that Volcryn sent the probe back in time and space is to give the crew an idea that they're going through paradox. She is almost in the conclusion as she says that she needs to go into the machine to trap Synthia in there. I assume that she doesn't survive because she's not present, when the-message-in-the-bottle is sent outside. Or then all the carnage we see is because Thales went mad in the space as the paradox started playing with his mind.

He was brave to go in for ride inside Synthia. In the cyberpunk literature that we know the runners in the cyberspace becomes part of it. Just like Loomie experienced Synthia's world. Thing that she saw locked doors, appeared as firewalls in the reality. Music that she heard was data, the covered paintings time stamped items. 

Knowing those stories, it wasn't surprise to me that Synthia, the Ai appeared as the little girl as within deep in our souls we know ourselves as the little ones. She asked  Loomie to leave before she was going to get hurt. But she didn't said that the security system within the Ares machine was presenting herself as Synthia the adult. 

My mind translates the dark man as the time paradox, all the corrupted data that should be purged from the system. But the problem for is that Thales doesn't understand the cyber realm as Loomie does or even as I do.

With the Synthia's escape the evil AI came back in the picture big way. We didn't knew that it was Captain's Mum in the first place, but with Karl's first death it is obvious. I personally at that point would have packed everyone in the shuttle and tried to leave. 

I did find it strange that Ares acted like an Android as Synthia attacked the systems outside her network. My question is, how many networks there are inside the ship?

When Loomie locked Synthia, the adult in the room with paradox, she also created a patch by creating an encryption that appeared in the Synthia's world as a crossbar. Does it mean that they've broken the paradox? I don't know. To me, as long as they keep on the mission to contact the aliens, they are still in the same loop. And as long as Synthia, the adult doesn't break the encryption, the ship should be fine. So, in a way, she's not the ghost, she's the wraith-in-the-system. But all of this should teach us that we shouldn't dabble with the organic AI.


----------



## ctg (Dec 9, 2018)

I don't understand SyFy's schedule. Why did they stop before the weekend arrived?


----------



## REBerg (Dec 9, 2018)

Looks like the series fires up again tonight (Sunday, here) and winds up on Thursday. Maybe Syfy is allergic to Saturdays?


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## ctg (Dec 9, 2018)

REBerg said:


> Looks like the series fires up again tonight (Sunday, here) and winds up on Thursday. Maybe Syfy is allergic to Saturdays?



Or then they are targetting audience that they know is not present until Sunday evening. Maybe the mini season break does wonders for the audience figures.


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## ctg (Dec 10, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E06 - The Sacred Thing



Loomie is smart. She knows that Mummy dearest isn't going to be stuck in her virtual prison forever. There will be time when she's back with vengeange. You can see that from the fact that nobody destroyed the Crystal Matrix as her presence filters into the telepathic dreams.

Strange as it is nobody thinks the organic Ai or the Crystal Matrix as a lifeform even though one contains the soul and the other shows all characteristics for being a real intelligence. Instead it is strange that all these scientists focus on chasing the Aliens and not study the new "old" thing as an example.






3D printed food in weird. Especially seeing the machine printing out cardboard, styrofoam mug and a properly cooked hotdog. I cannot even think about what that sort thing would taste, but as of now I'm freaked out by the 3D printed styrofoam mug getting filled with water at the same time. It must be one tasty mix of chemicals. 

For the first time the XO addressed the ship past. He said that in the earlier years the Nightflyer explored the Outer Planets and the Kuiper Belt. So all the wear and grime now have an explanation. But for being typical executive he acted foolishly for being one of the mission heads, when he claimed that "there cannot be life in the void." 

Ask Disney or check out SW Rebels if you're unsure about it. But honestly just last week ISS got coated with bacteria and the waterbears are known to survive in the vacuum of space, making them as space-traveller, possibly even interplanetary travellers. 

Captain Ares went along the same route and he said: "It is an error. No other ship has made it this far." And then they showed us this,






Man that ship looks very similar, if not a bit more advanced than Captain Ares pride and joy. Ares claims it's much older ship, from the Europa project and it's part of the series of vessels called surprisingly Eagle. That one being Eagle 16 or as he said: "Evil Six."

If you think about my quantum theory, the Eagle 16 presence nearby the Nightflyer kind of makes sense, because it might be part of the whole loop. We know that the White Rabbit came back as a biomechanical being, so it is very likely that the other ship has similar kind of things hidden in it, from seeing biological growth and blood splatters on the walls and doors.

It creeped me to see that all Eagle 16 passengers were mostly older females. But if the mission happens at the end of this century how those females can be all aged so perfectly. The Matriach said that they've been drifting in the lifeless ocean, and in that time they learned to make food in space with minimal energy. She also explained that men creates chaos and "it wasn't until all men had passed that we reached Harmony." 

Although you see young ones, they don't explain how they reproduced without the men. Maybe they had sperm stored in a cryo-storage or then maybe the sister made synthetic sperm to deliver handcrafted genetic code to the egg. 






My sense of disbelief was broken with this hundreds of meters long well going one end of the ship to the other. Why would the space travellers need well and ladders to traverse it to get from A to B? Wouldn't it make more sense to not have zero-gravity in there and use the freedom of flying instead of being scared of dropping? But if it's needed to be in normal gravity, wouldn't the builders seen the harm and built a cage around the ladders or installed a lift?






The Other Crystal Matrix doesn't look as alien or as organic as the one holds Synthia. You can also see that it's surrounded by a pretty normal looking servers. There's racks after racks of auxiliary machines around it. But as soon as the other CM was turned on, the females went crazy and started to slaughter men ... or rather harvest them for the seed to be used in their clone program.

Does it surprise anyone that Eagle 16 passengers had turned to cannibalism when they started drifting? I was totally freaked out by the sisters milking program as it as mechanised as us milking the cows. Man I would be screaming instead of moaning in pleasure that the men seemed to experience. So I was glad that Loomie rescued the XO and Chief Biologists, who was claiming that "there are many others way to do it..."

For being freaked out by the Sisters and their Matriarchy why is that the Nightflyers didn't lock the airlock open to eradict the freaks as they were so willingly murdering them in the first place? Why is that they need to subjucate others to the Eagle 16 horrors in the future?



A very freakish and scary episode.


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## REBerg (Dec 10, 2018)

All right! A big swing toward the SF end of the _Nightflyers _mix.


Spoiler



Lommie to the rescue, again! She really has become a central figure in the plot.
As well as being the physical heroine of the cast, Lommie is taking precautions to keep Ghost Mom Cynthia from making a comeback. She is also the only crew member who knows of the XO's enamored devotion to Cynthia, thanks to his destruction of the Eagle 16 crystal intended to become GM's new retirement home.
No doubt XO Auggie will play a part in Cynthia's escape from her digital prison cell. I did much appreciate getting a break from GM's chain-rattling antics for at least one episode.
I didn't find the man-milking matriarchal cult that developed as the Eagle 16 drifted through space for more a decade to be too far-fetched. I did find their chanting of "fresh seed!" as they assaulted the Nightflyer males to be somewhat over the top.
Of all the people I suspected of being an "L," Agatha was not one of them. I wonder how many eye-bleeding climaxes Karl can handle. /SPOILER]


----------



## ctg (Dec 10, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> I did find their chanting of "fresh seed!" as they assaulted the Nightflyer males to be somewhat over the top.



Yeah, I was thinking they were going shag them to death instead of that milking machine.



REBerg said:


> I wonder how many eye-bleeding climaxes Karl can handle?



I couldn't even write about it because having someone else in your head, while you're having sex is so weird, so unnatural. And that someone else is not physically in the room. That man is a real mind f-ck.

These lyrics fits the scene


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## REBerg (Dec 10, 2018)

ctg said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> I couldn't even write about it because having someone else in your head, while you're having sex is so weird, so unnatural. And that someone else is not physically in the room. That man is a real mind f-ck.





Spoiler



I initially thought that Thale, who obviously has a carnal interest in his psychiatrist/nanny, was telepathically participating in her tryst with Karl. When Karl abruptly realized that Martha is an "L," I concluded that the good doctor, herself, had added that little extrasensory oomph at the end.


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## ctg (Dec 10, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> When Karl abruptly realized that Martha is an "L,"



If she is a telepath someone did a huge cockup, be cause I don't think Nanny's are meant to be one of those. Or then it was done deliberately and someone wanted people go nuts. So far the unwritten rules has said that if telepath touches you their connection is enhanced. Therefore Karl being literally inside Martha and he should be totally controlled by Martha.

If she was an empath then Karl would flying in the pleasure island. I don't know what would happen with female multiple orgasm, but if it works, it would be more effective then the Sister's Milking Machine. Your nuts would be aching cause they would so empty.


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## REBerg (Dec 10, 2018)

Spoiler



Last three words of the episode, Karl to Martha: "You're an L".
No immediate denial from her. Wouldn't that give her an advantage as Thale's handler.


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## ctg (Dec 11, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> Last three words of the episode, Karl to Martha: "You're an L".



I must have missed them. Well, sh*t. George knows how to write shocking sex scenes. Man, but how come she has ended in a position of caring for pretty strong telepath and nobody has noticed it before? 



REBerg said:


> Wouldn't that give her an advantage as Thale's handler.



I'm not so sure. If she had known that she's one then sure. She would know what to do and how to treat someone else having whatever telepaths have on a bad day. But if she didn't, who is going to be in the stronger position and why she wasn't using her powers at the opening sequence?


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## REBerg (Dec 11, 2018)

ctg said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> I must have missed them. Well, sh*t. George knows how to write shocking sex scenes. Man, but how come she has ended in a position of caring for pretty strong telepath and nobody has noticed it before?





Spoiler



Either her telepathic ability so is weak that it doesn't register with Thale, or it is so strong that she can mask it from him.





ctg said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not so sure. If she had known that she's one then sure. She would know what to do and how to treat someone else having whatever telepaths have on a bad day. But if she didn't, who is going to be in the stronger position and why she wasn't using her powers at the opening sequence?





Spoiler



No guesses on that. Something so horrific that a nasty method of self-execution was her best option?


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## Cathbad (Dec 11, 2018)

Just watched Episode 1.  Wow.  I'm hooked!


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## ctg (Dec 11, 2018)

Cathbad said:


> Wow. I'm hooked!



I didn't knew you liked SF Horror. Did you?


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## Cathbad (Dec 11, 2018)

ctg said:


> I didn't knew you liked SF Horror. Did you?


I like Sci-Fi and horror.... just haven't seen much good work in them together (shudders, remembering *Jason in Space*).


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## ctg (Dec 11, 2018)

Cathbad said:


> I like Sci-Fi and horror.... just haven't seen much good work in them together (shudders, remembering *Jason in Space*).



Well, this series has more SF than Horror. It also stretches some of the disbelief things, but generally it's well put together. The actors play their socks off, while the directors has tried their best to not add too many things for the post production. In fact a lot of places shows that the production team built the nightflyer and decided to opt out from the green screen tech.


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## REBerg (Dec 11, 2018)

Back to the horror zone


Spoiler: 1.07 Transmission



Yikes! Mini Mom on a rampage, slicing and dicing Lommie's therapeutic digital family; Probe innards dancing to the tune of Volcryn transmissions; both resident telepaths losing control of their powers; and, last but not least, Rowan's and Tessia's new baby, stillborn and speed-rotting into a cloud of black, possibly deadly dust.

Yeah, they're still on a ship heading out to make first contact, but the sci-fi element took a seat at the very back of the bus for this episode. I keep wondering, how much of this real and how much is illusion.
There's a whole lot of mental projection going on.


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## ctg (Dec 11, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E07 - Transmission 



What is weirder then playing Russian Rulette in space? Maybe playing it inside someone else head, while pretending that you're completely off your noggin. Man, the things that the telepaths can do in someone else head is beyond the real. I don't know why Thale decided that in his head they were all in Vietnam while Jimi Hendrix played at the background All Along The Watchtower.

Maybe more amazing to that is that Thale's has imagination to bring D&D alive, and make the people want visit his mind time again. I was a little surprised that by the time Martha grew up role-playing games, especially the traditional ones had disappeared from the mainstream activities. Does it mean that there are no nerds in the future?

It's strange as I certainly would consider Karl and the Chief Biologist as one. But their behaviour is far from the popular nerd activities and instead of doing that they're heavily invested into their sciences, without embracing the rest that comes with it.  I personally know a couple theoretical physicist and they're full geeks, minus the pocket protector and slide-rule (except one).

I don't understand why Karl is obsessed accessing the biomechanical White Rabbit. The whole thing is dead and all you can get out from the dead is bad things. Well, maybe not all bad things, but in the Nightflyers case I can imagine the summoning of the zombies or something similar.

Rowan as the Chief Biologist should understand that and maybe he should have recommended Karl to stop and focus on something else. Like making babies. Except he has been continuing to do that for eight months straight. And in the meanwhile trying to make the probe core work.

It freaks me out that at their last session Martha told Karl that she has been taking L suppressants for most of her life. And that twice she has broken through them. Maybe she is as powerful, if not more powerful than Thales.

I think that because she has been taking drugs for most of her life her telepathic powers has only increased and through them she's able to tab the quantum realm to see visions from the future. I don't know how to really explain it, because it doesn't completely make sense. But as soon as she went into the medical coma, the probe came alive and the Volcryn appeared in the detection range.






I get that Martha was able to be free from Thales influence, but to me it seemed that Thales was being possessed by someone else rather than him being in the control. There is a possibility that the Volcryn tried to communicate and in order for them to do that they'll need to be in the drivers seat. As it continued maybe Thales should have tried to fight it, but instead of let go of all his restrains. The possibility is that his head would have exploded or he could have gained a connection with the alien species.






As soon as those hotdogs turned maggot piles and Milkshakes developed a shade of mold I knew that Synthia had broken through Loomie's defences. She said that "she didn't built her Virtual Reality in that way" instead of understanding the danger that deranged organic Ai presents. In fact as soon as Synthia took over, she should have tried to delete her Ai characters to prevent Synthia from killing them.



REBerg said:


> Mini Mom on a rampage, slicing and dicing Lommie's therapeutic digital family;



The exploration is humanity's oldest sin. If Loomie had been like Saru from the ST-D's she could have escaped and locked her VR realm in the same constrains as what she'd put around the original VR place. But the problem is that Synthia could have copied her code everywhere, when she escaped Loomie's constrains in the first place. It is possible that from that code as I explained in the Ai parents case that from those seedlings an evil Synthia could be reborn. But it wouldn't be the same as the real Mum. It would just have that evil characteristic instead of the original one in the Synthia's world. 



REBerg said:


> I keep wondering, how much of this real and how much is illusion.



A lot of it is illusion in the quantum realm. We know that Thale's custom on creating his own world, while Martha is suppressing her abilities. If Martha is the stronger one, she might be able to access the probe, power it and access the memories stored in the time-paradox. 

Maybe the Volkryn are the ones that can save them from the loop, because of their superior knowledge and understanding of the universe and how it works. Nobody knows about them, but in each episode they're the McGuffin, the ultimate goal that the crew never reaches.


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## REBerg (Dec 11, 2018)

ctg said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> The exploration is humanity's oldest sin. If Loomie had been like Saru from the ST-D's she could have escaped and locked her VR realm in the same constrains as what she'd put around the original VR place. But the problem is that Synthia could have copied her code everywhere, when she escaped Loomie's constrains in the first place. It is possible that from that code as I explained in the Ai parents case that from those seedlings an evil Synthia could be reborn. But it wouldn't be the same as the real Mum. It would just have that evil characteristic instead of the original one in the Synthia's world]





Spoiler



I am under the impression that Lommie did not constrain child Cynthia when she slammed the door on adult Cynthia, which was the "mistake" she said she had made after Mel freed her from the virtual world of the ship's crystal matrix.
Lommie seems to have assumed that Cynthia did not become psychotic until later in life. and that child was being held prisoner by her older self. That apparently not being the case, does the child have the power to release the adult? Has she already done so?
Of possible future significance, Lommie's revelation to Mel that dying in the crystal means dying in the real world.


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## ctg (Dec 11, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> That apparently not being the case, does the child have the power to release the adult?



Yeah, you would have the power but not the experience or the skills. You would still be a child compared to the adult. You could possible call it as maturing the Ai. How it's done in the reality is far different than how's done in the show, as our current understanding with the Ai's and the Machine Learning has shown that the Ai needs time and repetitions, meaning opportunities to do its thing. 

In our reality Ai's aren't that smart or imaginative, but in the Nightflyers universe Synthia used to control the whole ship. They cannot have left it in the manual control for eight months. Someone had to be in the control, reading data and pushing right buttons. I don't think that the bridge crew could do it on their own.  They would still need the machines functioning as they were developed.

Where GRRM and the producers are going with this is unknown.


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## REBerg (Dec 11, 2018)

We'll find out in the next three days.
I'm wondering if_ Nightflyers_ will be a standalone mini series or a multi-seasonal thing. As things stand right now, I don't see this concept as having the legs to continue beyond Friday night's finale.
That opinion, of course, may change at any point.


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## ctg (Dec 11, 2018)

REBerg said:


> I don't see this concept as having the legs to continue beyond Friday night's finale.



True. I think it's one book, one series deal. But, if they want, they can certainly do an ending that offers continuity to the series. It's just as it has been a SyFy tradition, these Christmas specials don't need more serialisation. Maybe they should try something totally new next year. Alister Reynolds maybe or one of SFFChronicles Authors.


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## ctg (Dec 12, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E08 - Rebirth



Losing a baby at birth is hard. Losing a baby and seeing it turn to black dust is harder. The only way I can explain is through my paradox theory. Maybe it doesn't allow new souls to be born inside the loop. Only make those who are participating in the events live in it. So any mother and father would be suffering through the same misery.

In the other hand it wouldn't explain why the Eagle 16 were able to clone bodies as surely those bodies would have to have gone through the same black dust thing. But at least now we have an explantion for why Chief Biologist went nuts in the opening scene. If that is true then Rowan must have figured out that the telepaths were the source for him losing the baby. 

What I don't understand is why the telepaths thought that the ice path can shield them from going towards the source for the telepathic energy? But what if that source is the source for the paradox? What if it can create the loop and break it? 

I didn't like the black dust killing the Medical Officer. It was horrible sight and it reminded me about my childhood drama of a similar kind of scene in a B-movie. I liked that the BeeMother was willing to kill herself through the decontamination cycle instead of allowing them to infect the whole ship.

When they brought Agatha to medical bay she connected with the black dust. She said, "they are making the sound." As she initialised the decotamination cycle I honestly though that Rowan was going to go completely bonkers as start chasing her around the ship.






Melantha cleverly figured out that Karl was right in regards of those telepaths as she had noticed Thale's becoming stronger with the close proximity. It lead Karl realising that the same telepathic energy is powering the White Rabbit. If it's a super power that can penetrate the time loop, then sure we know why everything went down the toilet at the end. It was just that the Nightflyers couldn't be saved as the humans in middle of it weren't telepaths.

I liked that in the next move Melantha went to ask Loomie's help and she end up threatening her with "a pulse rifle," if she didn't open the door and let her back in. It's just that everything Loomie revealed about her Synthia's made her to doubt that telepaths are in the middle of it. But here's the thing, if the Crystal Matrix is not originally a terrestrial product, it might something that the alien left behind and we reutilised as the Ai cores for the spaceships. 

If that is true then they should destroy the cores.






Karl asked his 'daughter' "Where are you?" and her reply told that in the real world she's back at the house, but in the bubble she's with the Chief Scientist. Effectively she's equivalent to the quantumcat in Schrödinger's paradox.  Like the dear professor Karl couldn't hold on to the both and as soon as he hugged her, she disappeared. 

Maybe that is universe confirming that we are on right path but at the same time it is a warning that  we cannot dabble with what we don't understand. There is no cheating. And there is not room for the greed, because you cannot double things.






To further the time loop theory, I think this is a portal created by the telepath energy to escape the paradox. You can see it becoming bigger in the scene and that there is space around it.



The Nightflyers is a very cool series as it reaches to so many conceptual things that are littered in many parts of the SF realms. It keeps watchers guessing almost in the equal level to Nolan's WestWorld. In the same time it reuses many of things that SyFy has created for the other series. But it doesn't make the series cheesy. Instead it make the Nightflyers super interesting.


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## REBerg (Dec 12, 2018)

Seems to me that_ Nightflyers is_ not as much about aliens messing with the minds of humans as it is about GRRM messing with the minds of his fans.


Spoiler



Revelations: The black mold is real and organic, while Capt. Eris is less than real and non-organic? I thought that he had picked a bad time to monitor a crisis in person. As it turned out, not so much. Is he a fireproof android?
I have to assume that the mold spores are real and alien. Perhaps they are the actual Volcryn.
How did they get aboard the _Nightflyer_? My best guess -- via the White Rabbit. Alternate possibility: through the Eagle-16 contact, although the survivors there didn't seem to have a mold problem. Third possibility:  GRRRM wrote it that way.
The Nightflyer should have made U-turn and headed back to Earth the moment that the crew learned that the Volcryn were broadcasting on the same telepathic wavelength as the resident Ls. The only alternative would have been to kill both Thale and Agatha before both completely run amok.
Cynthia taking over Lommie's body is more bad news. The crew is in for a rough time. Virtual Lommie is going to learn that her abusive childhood, compared to be trapped with Cynthia's father, really wasn't so bad.


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## ctg (Dec 12, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> Cynthia taking over Lommie's body is more bad news. The crew is in for a rough time. Virtual Lommie is going to learn that her abusive childhood, compared to be trapped with Cynthia's father, really wasn't so bad.



The father is just a construct. I think she made a mistake when she took over Loomie's mortal body as now she's killable, when as in before she was close to being an immortal.



REBerg said:


> Third possibility: GRRRM wrote it that way.



Yep. It might be the case.


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## ctg (Dec 12, 2018)

A little bit of facts about the novella.


> The original version, clocking in at 23,000 words, was published in _Analog Science Fiction and Fact_ in 1980. The next year, Martin expanded the novella to 30,000 words so that it could be included in Dell’s Binary Star series, which pairs two works in one book; _Nightflyers_ joined Vernor Vinge’s cyberpunk novella _True Names_. The later _Nightflyers_, which was also published in Bluejay Books’ 1985 collection, is Martin’s preferred version.
> 
> In 1981, _Nightflyers_ was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella. While it did not win the Hugo, it did win the Locus Award (for Best Novella) and the 1983 Seiun Award in Japan (for foreign short fiction). It was one of the major adventures, though not the first, in what Martin called the “manrealm,” or the “Thousand Worlds” universe.


 Everything You Need to Know About George R.R. Martin’s Nightflyers

One of my favourite long reads are Verno Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. Both are as unfilmable as Dan Simmons Hyperion. But if they would be given enough of love and attention, both would make as marvellous series as this one. Although they would need a bit resources to explain things, and as Fire Upon the Deep is around 200 000 words, SyFy certainly would have a lot of material to cover. 

Interesting point is that GoodReads rates GRRM's The Nightflyers around 3.5, which in itself doesn't equate as the top class. If I would have to score this series, I would put it between 3 and 4 on 5 scale, because the concepts fly so high over the average watchers world view that the whole thing might be a bit off putting. Also I really don't like that they have the artificial gravity turned on, instead of using wires and CGI in certain parts of the ship to imitate areas that are weaker.


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## REBerg (Dec 13, 2018)

Spoiler: 1.09 Icarus



I don't know if Rowan's rampage was driven by his extreme grief or his actions were telepathically powered (Cynthia, Thale, the Volcryn, the bees?). Either way, farewell Agatha and Captain Eris [(maybe) and at least one other crew member who was unfortunate enough to cross his honey-smearing path before his spree ended.
The opening scene in which Rowan buried his baby's blanket, toy bunny and wooden nameplate was touching, The bees seemed to be paying their respects to the family as they gathered over the grave, although Rowan saw them as a personification of Tessia.
It appeared as if he took his final murderous instructions from the lone bee that rouses him from his grieving stupor, lands on his ax and leads him through the ship in search of his targets. Tessia? Is that you? You seemed so nice when you were alive.
Funny that neither Karl nor Mel asked for clarification when Thale said they did not want to know what was going on inside Rowan's head. No sidetracking that plot filament.
The series finally caught up the death scene presented in the first minutes of the premiere episode. Agatha's suicide motivation was, I guess, saving Thale from the Teke energy feedback intensifying as the Nightflyer approached the Volcryn, driving them both mad. There must have been a better way -- maybe both staying in astral-projection mode?
I doubt that Karl's obsession about being reunited with his daughter through the Volcyrn will materialize. The sight of the Nightflyer being pulled into the Volcryn cloud was reminiscent of the ships entering the ring in _The Expanse_.


----------



## ctg (Dec 13, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E09 - Icarus



I cannot say I would know what went on within Rowan's mind. when he buried his child. Murder was one possibility, but others are the loss, the sadness, the anger and the despair for losing everything that had made him happy. But for him being such smart man, he surely let the anger build over everything even though he cannot say it was Agatha's or Thale's fault that the child died through that black dust. Although I think he was pushed to make conclusions when the freaking bees started to hover over the grave site.

We know that the bees sometimes makes nests in the corpses, but it shouldn't mean that they can smell the stuff coming from the grave, when everything organic got vaporised in the decontamination cycle. But when we saw Ares again, he had already reinstalled his eyes as if it was nothing and there was reserves for those things stored somewhere in the ship.

Melantha made the same observation and she even added: "How the f-ck did you survive?"

The question in mind is if Synthia is his mother, then was Synthia a biological candidate or was she always an Ai? Ares answered: "My eyes were manufactured by the ship and they were part of my mothers synthetic program." 

If you remember earlier scene, where Synthia went mad and she gave dear Captain a headache, he acted as if he was an android. As there are no others like him, it might be likely that there was not just one soul upload, but two. One for same dear mum, and other to make Ares the caretaker. 

I don't really understand how Synthia wasn't fully able to control Loomie's body. I can only suspect that somehow the soul vessel is marked for everyone and there is no way you can transport a soul from one body to another. But if that is true in their universe, it should also mean that clones aren't able carry lives of the original ones.






They truly went far away into the interstellar space to meet with the Volcryn. The captain said: "I've never seen anything like this," as the Volcryn kept moving in the space hologram as fluidly and as freely as if they were living in the vacuum. But that is also a thing that would explain why the aliens are super powerful telepaths. Without out the matter transmitting the sound, they had to become a telepaths to be able to communicate with each other.

It might even be that they don't need to eat matter like we do, if they're biological beings living in the space as they could feed from the cosmic rays, and somehow translate radiation into energy to keep them alive. 

Karl cleverly realised that the waves Volcryn produces are the pulses of psychic energy, allowing Thale's to connect with the alien beings. But as he really got pulled in, the Volcryn produced the portal pattern and showed scenes captured far away in the space, like the Pillars of the Creation that you can see underneath.






To me that is a clear proof that the Volcryn are trying to break the time paradox, and that they've always lived in the space. Thale's said, "I saw death, rebirths, thousands of world," when he descibed what he'd seen. Either it's proof of the paradox or it's a proof that they've been living in the space forever. 

Karl however couldn't understand that sort of thing, even though all the logic was there laid out before him. Maybe he was too close, too emotionally attached to the mechanisms and laws that we know to not think out from the box. 






That didn't stop Agatha as she freely detached her soul from her biological body and became an astral projection. Then she went and thought that same thing to Thale's. She understood clearly that they were able to live in those bodies at vicinity to the aliens. She even called as ascension to something new. It is clear that the suppression chemicals made her to be the stronger telepath.

What I don't understand is why she tried to make Karl to stop and then gave him a blessing, when she realised that he'd become obsessed by the first contact. Why she couldn't make Karl to understand that they'd been in contact ever since Thale was brought into the ship?

Why Karl couldn't ask her to go out there in her astral body? 






When Agatha entered into her cabin and as Chief Biologist slobbering a piece of honey comb all over his face, she could had alerted the whole ship as it's clear that she understood that Rowen was harbouring murder. In the lift the same thing happened. And when the ship started to become apart, she could have possible taken over his man and put him into a psychic coma, instead of letting Rowen to play an axe murder. 

Maybe she was too scared to go into the mind of crazed killer even though she'd been Thale's caretaker for years and years.  You could probably lose yourself in their minds, but it is far more likely that the Chief Biologist would have been stunned. 

Instead she fled, hid herself in the lab and produced the recording we saw in the opening. Telepaths should be awesome cops, if they would allow themselves to free from phobias. It is strange that Rowen felt nothing, when he grabbed her and shoved on the floor. Instead of getting connect to the telepaths mind, he continued being nuts almost as if he'd become invulnerable to psychic connections. 

Did she knew that she was able live as an astral body within the Volcryn construct?

At the end she said: "I have to break the loop!"

So it was a paradox. Will SyFy make another season? Maybe. Let's hope so.



Fantastic season final. And just as I said that the psychics aren't realistic they showed what happens, when the artificial gravity breaks down. SyFy clearly has a plan for this series and it is possible that there is another season in the future. Maybe it's even plausible to think that it's all happening with George's blessing. 

If you haven't seen this series, check it out whenever you can. But when you do, be open minded as there are things that will fly over your head, just like it did with Nolan's WestWorld. The season final pushed this series up on 4 out of 5. The reason for missing point, the lack of world building as I would love to find out  how the Nightflyer universe is normally, what the humanity has done in the space, and how far they've gone to colonise the other places.


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## ctg (Dec 13, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> The sight of the Nightflyer being pulled into the Volcryn cloud was reminiscent of the ships entering the ring in _The Expanse_.



Yeah. Except there was no Ring, just the zone.


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## REBerg (Dec 13, 2018)

Hey, let's not jump the gun, here. We've got the finale (1.10 "All That Have Found") scheduled tonight.


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## REBerg (Dec 13, 2018)

ctg said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> Did she knew that she was able live as an astral body within the Volcryn construct?





Spoiler



Was that the source of the voiceover as Karl grieved over Agatha's dead body?


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## ctg (Dec 13, 2018)

REBerg said:


> Hey, let's not jump the gun, here. We've got the finale (1.10 "All That Have Found") scheduled tonight.



Oh, I thought that was the finale! My mistake. Apologies.



Spoiler






REBerg said:


> Was that the source of the voiceover as Karl grieved over Agatha's dead body?



My understanding is that she saved herself in the astral body. And she was going to join the Volcryn to break the loop.


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## REBerg (Dec 13, 2018)

Not a problem. You had me for a second. I would hate for the series (season) to end with so many unanswered questions.



Spoiler



If she can communicate with Karl that way, they can dump Thale.


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## ctg (Dec 13, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> If she can communicate with Karl that way, they can dumb Thale.



Who is going to teach astral projection to other telepaths?


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## REBerg (Dec 14, 2018)

Reset?


Spoiler: 1.10 All That We Have Found



This could be one of those things, as ctg said, that has flown over my head.
Looks to me that the Volcryn decided to give Humans another go by looping the Nightflyer first contact mission all the way back to square one. Karl was returned to his daughter with bloody T-shirt and memories intact, leaving only the bracelet given to him by his daughter behind in the escape pod. She might scold him for losing it.
All of the axing, bloodletting and eye-scooping aboard the Nightflyer never happened for anyone but Karl, whose memories would make him essential to the success of a mission remake. A good start would be cutting Agatha from the team.
I note that the opening labeled this episode a "season" rather than a "series" finale. Would successive seasons take a _Groundhog Day/Edge of Tomorrow _approach, repeating the mission until Humans get first contact right?


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## ctg (Dec 14, 2018)

REBerg said:


> Reset?



I haven't seen it. I left the house at 10.30 am and just came back from the hospital.


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## BAYLOR (Dec 15, 2018)

This is series is a terrific ! I can't wait for season 2 !


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## ctg (Dec 15, 2018)

Spoiler: S01E10 - All That We Have Found



For a man hell-bent on seeing his dead daughter again Karl seemed to be extra devastated for losing Agatha. I mean the ship was breaking apart and he wouldn't devote any pieces of his memory machine to saving it, because of off-chance of seeing his daughter again. 

Why would the space-aliens sent them back in time with his memories intact? It's either crazy or then the Volcryn's would know that his memory-machine would break through the quantum-barriers and eventually Karl would gain his memories back. But, here's the thing, why they would do that same thing to Agatha or Thale's, because surely they would again start receiving psychic feedback from the aliens trying to break the loop. 

Interesting thing that no SF writer - to my knowledge - has brought up is, does these space-time continuum breaking paradoxes cause problems for navigation and safety in space? The space is infinite in size, but things inside it can be arranged in certain way, and there are only limited ways things can be achieved. So does the event places cause problems? I don't know for sure, because the humanity has not experienced anything like it. 

The paradoxes are extreme events, breaking them has be equally extraordinary. Therefore, maybe one passenger is enough to prevent it from happening in the first place. But it doesn't explain how they occur, and what caused it. It's just a cure. A gift from one species to another, for no reason at all or then the reason is that the paradoxes are things that causes problems for the higher species, and they needed it to be removed. 

However, how is anyone going to listen Karl if what he says sounds crazy? The exploration is our oldest sin, and I'm sure the Nightflyer will chase Volcryn's again, even if Karl has the knowledge. So, without knowing what caused it, Karl is just holding a punch of clues in his hands.   






Malentha was equally devastated. But strangely she wasn't concerned about flying into the alien phenomenom as she was grieving at Ares bedside as if the android had a soul. If Ares is Synthia's product, then surely, if she wanted she could fix the machine again. 

What I don't understand is why Karl believed Loomie more and why Malentha couldn't see that her former lover wasn't acting like the hacker should? Synthia isn't Loomie and she is too angry for acting as the hacker should. It is very likely that the organic Ai never watched and recorded Loomie's actions so carefully that she would have passed as the real hacker. Yet, Karl and Malentha bought her lies as if Synthia had become a master actress all of suddenly. 

It took a really long time for Malentha to understand that the Ai light wasn't the same. Even then, she thought that Ares was trying to communicate with her, instead of understanding that things weren't as they looked. Maybe for us humans the thing is that once we trust the face, we trust that they will never change. So maybe it is wrong for us to claim that paranoia is madness, when in fact, it's a nature given warning bell or in the other words, an instinct. 

When Malentha got inside the Ai room it took her a while to understand what she was looking at, even though surely should have encountered some of the technology back on Earth and inside the ship and on board Eagle-16. Synthia had to explain everything. It was like a confession from a technology wizard as Synthia told Malentha that she'd done some dark arts.  But she made me laugh, when Synthia revealed that Malentha had been shagging his brother. Typical GRRM. LOL. 

Why aren't the fans going nuts on this revelation? 






Rowen acted like normal man at the brig. It surprised me that they didn't space him, but threw him into the hole to be even more desperate. There is no easy way for him to come back from grief introduced madness as it is the same for everyone of us. Healing takes a lot of time and penitence is not easy. It's far easier to let the anger and madness to fly.    






Why nobody in the ship were saying that "look there's life in space?" when they saw the alien being floating outside their bridge? I mean nobody was checking it out, or even pointing at it while they were cleaning and fixing the ship. Sure the Nightflyer was damaged and they'd just the captain, but why is that nobody had time to wonder, when they'd been chasing Volcryn's for nine months? I would have been gaping at it, poking people and pointing at it to the point of madness, just because Volcryn's are an awesome sight to behold. The only pointing and looking happened, when Thale's provided view to Karl. 

Yet Rowen was talking about it, and he'd been going to crazy for while, before Karl rescued him from the prison. But how he'd found time to study Volcryn's behaviour as he'd been so googly eyed for the love-of-his-life having a bun in the oven? They'd not got a close sight from the alien being until they were in the situation. 




REBerg said:


> Would successive seasons take a _Groundhog Day/Edge of Tomorrow _approach, repeating the mission until Humans get first contact right?



Maybe, but with the knowledge Karl has the edge. He can prevent things from happening as they happened, and he can use what he has learned for good. If the second season happens, it has to show that his knowledge makes the difference. So reset isn't necessary. I'm certain that GRRM can expand the world and provide us a larger picture.


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## REBerg (Dec 15, 2018)

Spoiler






ctg said:


> For a man hell-bent on seeing his dead daughter again Karl seemed to be extra devastated for losing Agatha.








Spoiler



With all the chaos going on, Agatha's body still got a proper foil-wrapped sendoff into the cosmos, whereas the remains of android Eris were unceremoniously dumped on his bed, still showing signs of "life" but given no further attention. Bias toward the organic?
Speaking of organic, the "real" Roy Eris was quite a revelation. I was surprised that Mel was able to remove one of the android's eyes to gain access to the room that included his aquarium.





Spoiler






ctg said:


> Synthia told Malentha that she'd done some dark arts. But she made me laugh, when Synthia revealed that Malentha had been shagging his brother. Typical GRRM. LOL.
> 
> Why aren't the fans going nuts on this revelation?








Spoiler



Mel was genetically siblings with the real Roy, so maybe shagging your android brother is less outrageous. Now, if she had jumped into the aquarium for a carnal reunion with the in-the-flesh Roy.../SPOILER]





Spoiler






ctg said:


> However, how is anyone going to listen Karl if what he says sounds crazy? The exploration is our oldest sin, and I'm sure the Nightflyer will chase Volcryn's again, even if Karl has the knowledge. So, without knowing what caused it, Karl is just holding a punch of clues in his hands.








Spoiler



Karl would realize how damaging the truth would be to his credibility. I see him as relying heavily on the words "trust me" as he guides his team and the crew around the pitfalls of the first mission.



If Syfy decides to do another season, I would watch it.


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## ctg (Dec 15, 2018)

Spoiler






REBerg said:


> Agatha's body still got a proper foil-wrapped sendoff into the cosmos, whereas the remains of android Eris were unceremoniously dumped on his bed, still showing signs of "life" but given no further attention. Bias toward the organic?



Yeah. Bias, because we cannot for some reason accept or love the abnormal. We think machines as disposable things, even thought they're the ones that keeps us alive. It's like at the end we think that we can walk in shop and get another one ... even out there, billions of kilometres from Earth. I also take from the images that they were in the interstellar space. 



REBerg said:


> Now, if she had jumped into the aquarium for a carnal reunion with the in-the-flesh Roy..



ROFL. Yeah, man, that is funny. A bit of love at the end of times. It would just made it a bit more realistic.



REBerg said:


> Karl would realize how damaging the truth would be to his credibility. I see him as relying heavily on the words "trust me" as he guides his team and the crew around the pitfalls of the first mission.



If he would change his profession to preacher, it would be easier for the people to accept the all the faith he's putting on the words "trust me." We need evidence from everything, except God.


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## Cathbad (Dec 16, 2018)

Okay, I just finished the season.  And I loved it!

Will it back for a second season?  About the only possibility for that is if the alien entity gives them a "reset"?  

Then again, it could become another serial story, like Star Trek, with new missions?

Nah.

I'm thinking this is it.  If there is a "reset", I'll watch it - but not another reset after that.


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## REBerg (Dec 16, 2018)

Cathbad said:


> Okay, I just finished the season.  And I loved it!
> 
> Will it back for a second season?  About the only possibility for that is if the alien entity gives them a "reset"?
> 
> ...


Just think of the money they would save. Half of the second season would be flashbacks of what went wrong the first time around. Two-thirds of season three would be flashbacks of seasons one and two ...


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## Cathbad (Dec 16, 2018)

REBerg said:


> Just think of the money they would save. Half of the second season would be flashbacks of what went wrong the first time around. Two-thirds of season three would be flashbacks of seasons one and two ...


Oh, the horrors!!!


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## ctg (Feb 2, 2019)

It's now available in the Netflix.


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## Lumens (Feb 4, 2019)

I don't quite know what to make of this. It has some great moments, but almost seems improvised some times. I guess that's ok because it makes it less predictable.

I think it could benefit from being more dreamlike or psychedelic, even if it was just the odd camera angle. Does it seem a bit rushed? 

Anyway, I'm keeping with it.


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## ctg (Feb 4, 2019)

Lumens said:


> I think it could benefit from being more dreamlike or psychedelic, even if it was just the odd camera angle. Does it seem a bit rushed?



It does, but I also recommend reading our episodic reviews. I do admit that we got lost at the beginning, then after a while it starts to become clearer that everything is happening 



Spoiler



because of the TT.



Just keep at it.


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## Lumens (Feb 4, 2019)

ctg said:


> It does, but I also recommend reading our episodic reviews.


OK, will do.


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## Luiglin (Feb 4, 2019)

Catching up with this on Netflix and thoroughly enjoying it so far.


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## Phyrebrat (Feb 4, 2019)

I’m enjoying it for what it is. A clumsy but fun guilty pleasure. 

One thing I’m really concerned about us GRRMs relationship to women and particularly his mother. I believe we should start campaigning for some therapy for the poor old misogynist blighter. 

Wow, has he got women issues!

pH


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## ctg (Feb 4, 2019)

Phyrebrat said:


> Wow, has he got women issues!



Yeah, expect he didn't take part in the writing process of this series. That fact came out after the series had broadcasted first time. Since I still haven't managed to read the original story, I don't know if females are in those situations as the story is only 30 000 words long. 

His descriptions are long and he takes time to explain the conflict. So, I don't think that everything you'll see was in the novella.


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## Phyrebrat (Feb 4, 2019)

ctg said:


> Yeah, expect he didn't take part in the writing process of this series. That fact came out after the series had broadcasted first time. Since I still haven't managed to read the original story, I don't know if females are in those situations as the story is only 30 000 words long.
> 
> His descriptions are long and he takes time to explain the conflict. So, I don't think that everything you'll see was in the novella.



Hmm who can say? I think the depiction of women under his name here and in _Game of Thrones_ seems particularly, consistently worrying:

1) Evil, broken matriarchs.
2) A woman whose power comes solely from her genetic augmentation rather than inherently.
3) A mother figure co-opting her mother-ness as a way to exploit her pseudo son.
4) I like the portrayal of the damaged mixed-race girl who connects to the ship. She seems to be the only one with a decent depth. But then she also smashed her father up a bit with a sledgehammer?!?

GRRM must live in a torturous mind where wimminz iz evil!!



pH


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## Lumens (Feb 5, 2019)

Well, that series was a merry mess! 

I enjoyed it, but only with copious amounts of ice cream.

Maybe it was too advanced for me and the multiple glaring mistakes could be explained somehow. What do I know. I do think GRRM should stay with fantacy though.


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## ctg (Feb 5, 2019)

Well, I was wrong HBO barred GRRM from writing in the series. So, the director did the next best thing and asked for George's feedback. Therefore @Phyrebrat was right, Mr Martin has mother issues, but I don't think he should solely devote his time for the fantasy. 



> Owing to his commitment to HBO, Martin wasn’t permitted to work on the show in an official capacity, but after writing the script for the pilot Buhler made sure Martin got hold of a copy. Instead of having him board the writing team, Buhler did the next best thing: he developed a relationship with Martin and kept him in the loop, going to him for advice and feedback.
> 
> Though the show takes place mostly in space (with a few flashbacks to life on Earth before the mission began), it’s far from a space opera. “A lot of sci-fi shows that have been coming out sort of fit into the loose category of space opera, but I would put us squarely in the horror camp,” Buhler tells us. “I would also say that we have a more conceptual approach to storytelling. There’s a little bit of David Lynch in there and a little bit of David Cronenberg. There’s a little bit of Ridley Scott and of course there’s a bit of Stanley Kubrick across the whole thing, as he’s that great giant on the hill whose shadow is cast across the entire genre. Instead of trying to run away from the huge influences we try to embrace them. I think there’s an element of cinematic fanboy geekdom in there. So people who are fans of horror or sci-fi will recognised lots of Easter eggs and treasures scattered throughout the show, which I think is a slightly different approach to horror straight down the line.”
> 
> ...


 Nightflyers writer Jeff Buhler on George RR Martin, space and what’s next for the human race


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## Lumens (Feb 5, 2019)

ctg said:


> ...but I don't think he should solely devote his time for the fantasy.


Right. Maybe I was too harsh there. The thing is, I loved the overall story and thought it ended on an interesting note. There were also some great ideas and scenes - the way it all starts with the tree in space is fantastic, bordering on classic. I just think they could have told the story a little better throughout. But it's easy to sit here being a cold critic while wolfing down ice cream. My opinion doesn't really count, anyway.

We are so spoiled these days, and that's what I take away from this. Thanks for the reviews of episodes and interesting takes on things.


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## ctg (Feb 5, 2019)

Lumens said:


> My opinion doesn't really count, anyway.



It does, as it is as valid as any other opinions. GRRM was a creator/consultant in this project, so even his opinion would just be an opinion as Buhler put the whole thing together and went further than George in the previous time. 



Lumens said:


> We are so spoiled these days, and that's what I take away from this.



I agree. We are spoiled, and I hope SyFy doesn't stop making these even things fly over the audience heads, because they're brave and bold on creating material that is controversial to what we so often see in the small screen. 



Lumens said:


> Thanks for the reviews of episodes and interesting takes on things.



It is always my pleasure, even if sometimes I don't want to do it. Thank you for putting a smile on my face.


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## Al Jackson (Feb 20, 2019)

Nightflyers gets only one season ..... I could see this coming … the Martian story is circumscribed and should have been a movie, a movie better than the earlier one made.


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## svalbard (Feb 20, 2019)

Not a great surprise that this was cancelled. It was woefully bad. It was all over the place. It showed that Martin had no input into the writing.


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## Al Jackson (Feb 23, 2019)

Al Jackson said:


> Nightflyers gets only one season ..... I could see this coming … the Martian story is circumscribed and should have been a movie, a movie better than the earlier one made.


Why did I typo out Martian?


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## Rodders (Apr 17, 2020)

Sorry guys, I'm bumping this thread. Just going to finish the second series of Altered Carbon and then I'm going to watch this.


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## Rodders (Apr 24, 2020)

Watched it. I thought it was okay, but given the ending, which I thought was quite nice, I didn’t understand where the horror came from. I also think That the series ended where it should’ve and any further series would’ve been unbearable. I would be interested now in reading the story that it was based on. 

Great ship design and effects. The acting was okay, but it could be quite melodramatic on occasion. Good sound track.


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