Listen to my ~1000 word audio story on Immortal Work’s Flash Fiction Friday read by Angela Wright-Stevens.
Let me know what you thought in the comments.
The Postmodern Frankenstein’s Monster: Aida from MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.
Mad scientists have taken many forms/personages/appearances over the decades since Frankenstein, Moreau, and Rotwang. We have the plucky good guys like Flubber and Doc Brown, and the villainous breed in the Re-Animator and perhaps 90% of Spider-man villains. In our postmodern age, the mad scientist has adapted in appearances and subtlety, but the moral dilemma between what science can do and what it should do is still very much in the public sightgeist. I believe mad scientists are at their best when we really aren’t sure where they fall on the good-guy/bad-guy spectrum, or when they can shift depending on what serves them best.
As a connoisseur of the sub-genre, I have been enjoying Season 4 of MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. as the show explores the motivations and consequences of our mad scientist, Dr. Radcliffe, and his creation, Aida, the postmodern Frankenstein’s monster.
***SPOILER WARNING***
Dr. Radcliffe is a brilliant scientist and transhumanist, which is a person who believes in transcending normal human limitations with science and technology. In the show, Radcliffe seems to have endless resources to carry out his experiments. Back in Season 3, Radcliffe was forced to help HIVE by experimenting with the whole Terrigen/Inhuman plotline. Eventually Radcliffe helps the team and becomes an ally, though a condition of his pardon is he is not allowed to conduct unauthorized experiments. Luckily, you can’t keep a good mad scientist down. Radcliffe builds AIDA, an artificial intelligence based on S.H.I.E.L.D. technology.
We already know this will not end well. Through the course of Season 4, Radcliffe and Aida go from ally to adversary and back several times as they carry out Radcliffe’s schemes. There is a season’s worth of pseudo-sciences with a splash of dark magic, which I’m not going to delve into here. The point I want to make is how brilliant the writers have architected Aida’s character arc.
Aida transforms from simpleton in mind and body to a warrior and infiltrator. As she struggles to understand her place in the world and tries to interpret Radcliffe’s programming, Aida finds herself and comes up with a few goals of her own. Using power gained from reading an evil magic book (not my favorite part of the story), Aida saves several of the team, proving her value and earning herself a bit of trust.
But Aida’s transformation is far from complete. When the team learns that Radcliffe has betrayed them, Aida and Radcliffe flee SHIELD to the enemy. Aida goes from sidekick as she tries to understand Radcliffe’s selfish and personal goals, to mastermind. She ultimately betrays her creator, like any good monster should, albeit in a way that doesn’t circumvent her programing logic. Aida kills Radcliffe’s body and traps his mind in a reality simulation of his own creation. In this simulation, Aida becomes the supreme dictator, Madam Hydra.
Her real motivation, though, is slowly revealed as our heroes struggle to free themselves from the simulation. She wants to become a “real” person, free from the constraints of her programming. Using the power of the evil “magic book,” Aida uses a mix of sciences and magic to gain a real body and is free. Thankfully, Aida’s story is far from over as she apparently has magic teleporting abilities. Aida is a true monster in a postmodern age, although the story is still exploring the same themes and struggles found in the pages of Frankenstein and the Isle of Dr. Moreau.
Radcliffe’s story did come to an end as he ultimately found some redemption helping his protege escape the grasp of his creation.
What do we learn from these stories? What does the mad scientist trope teach us about our constant need for progress and technology? Is this a warning? Can we leave our future in the hands of corporations and governments to regulate our scientist? Whose morality do we rely on?
My Strength Finder results and Board Games
At work, my boss gave me the book Strength Finder 2.0 and challenged me take the quiz to discover my true strengths and to develop ways to utilize those strengths in my job.
My results were not surprising to me at all, and the names the book gives to those strengths are all almost intuitive enough to guess at what they represent. My results were, in order:
Intellection, Maximizer, Ideation, Strategy, and Adaptability.
Basically, I love to think things out, maximize the potential for things and people around me, love to generate ideas and am flexible, love to strategize, and can adapt to things that come my way. That really does sounds like me.
Note: Under Intellection, which was my #1, the book says, “Because of your strengths, you usually give good advice.” Just in case anyone was on the fence on this particular issue.
This whole process got me thinking. As I was contemplating my results, one thing that dawned on me is that these 5 areas are everything that I love in a board game. If a board game challenges me in these specific ways, chances are I will love it!
Let’s extrapolate. Terraforming Mars by Stronghold Games and Fryx Games is one of the best new games (if not the best) of the last few years. Also, it is a personal favorite of mine. So, let’s see how it aligns with my 5 strengths.
Intellection
Terraforming Mars is a science based game, using terms, ideas, speculation, locations, and perceived processes of actually terraforming the planet Mars. Each card is based on one of these ideas. The thought that went into the design of this game is amazing. Each card resonates with me on an intellectual level. Take for instance the card “Deimos Down.”
The goal in the game is to make Mars habitable for human life. This card represents crashing Deimos, one of Mars’ moons, into the planet. Why would anyone want to do that? To raise the temperature on Mars closer to the goal temperature that will sustain human life. The effects of this card start with that. After playing, we raise the heat three times. Also, we gain four steel from the mineral content contained within the moon that we can now harvest easily from the crater left behind when the moon impacted the surface. Also, the card says we get to remove eight plants from another player. Why? Because we had to crash the moon somewhere. It landed on your trees. Oops.
The whipped cream on top of this awesome card is the flavor text at the bottom. “We don’t use that moon anyway.” Fabulous. This whole card is thought provoking. The theme resonates through all of the mechanics. Superb design. Also, when I draw this card, I get to think about how and when to best use it.
Maximizer
Terraforming Mars is won by making the most of every resource and card available to you. The player who can maximise the effects of all the options available is going to win. The only luck involved in this game is the cards you draw. This is also mitigated by drafting the cards you get every turn. The luck of the draw can help or hinder, but the game is about maximizing the potential of the cards you do draw or draft. There are a few points during the game where timing of plays matters, but that is minimal and there are always other things to do on your turn. So, as a maximizer, this game is fantastic.
Ideation
To quote the book, “People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.” Connecting cards, options, board placement, mechanics, and board position is what makes this game shine. You have to set up certain cards to maximize the play. Take for instance the card “Capital.”
This card places a city tile on Mars, like many other cards, but this city is worth points for each water tile next to it in addition to any greenery tiles. In order to make the best use of this card, I should consider several factors in addition to just placing it near water. I also cannot play the card until there are four water tiles on Mars, which is the prerequisite for playing the card. Also, I need to figure out how to pay for the card, and when the best time is to play it. I may have other cards I need to play first, and need to balance my spending on other cards in order to make the plan come together. How I play the cards is determined by my board position, my other cards in hand, other actions I have in play, the speed other people are playing and actions they are taking, and my own personality. You got to come up with a plan.
Strategic
“By nature, you are innovative, inventive, original, and resourceful.”
Terraforming Mars can give you a direction to travel, restrictions on how to proceed, and a roadmap to victory, but each player needs to be innovative with the cards they have access to. Players take the role of a corporation with a unique starting position and ability, which hints at a direction, but ultimately, each player needs to use the resources better than the other players in order to win. You have to blaze a new trail each game and find an original path to victory, using the resources you gain throughout the game.
Adaptability
Each generation or round of play, you get access to new cards, which may play into your current plan, or you might end up changing everything in favor of a new one based on the new cards. A spot on the board you had your eye can get taken, so you have to find the next best spot, or perhaps abandon that plan and form a new one. Adapting to the ever-changing board state can be challenging, but also rewarding. Each new card is a potential for maximizing your play if you can adapt your plan to fit that card in.
TL, DR
I may have over thought this a bit. It was fun though, and I’ve enjoyed every time I have gotten to play Terraforming Mars. There are many other games that hit all of these strengths which I love, Magic: The Gathering and Firefly: The Board Game, for example. Other games hit some of my five and are still great and fun. Others may hit some of these, but perhaps include areas that I have a weakness in. The Strength Finder team choose deliberately to focus on people strengths, but I would be interested in learning what the five areas I’m weakest in. I don’t think I would try to strengthen them so much as try to avoid situations that I have to use them. Hey, I probably do that anyway without thinking about it.
Legion on FX is my Newest Obsession!
My new obsession is Legion on F/X. This is a Marvel/X-men TV show disguised as a quirky love story/psycho-drama. Much of the show takes place in the main characters extremely unreliable memory, which makes for some delicious and creepy moments as the imagery that has haunted him since he was a child become more and more real for everyone.
Plus, who could resist Rachel Keller as Syd Barrett?
This show also has a mad scientist, or two or three, depending on how you look at it.
Bill Irwin plays the scientist Cary Loudermilk, flipping archaic computer knobs and switches as he studies mutant powers.
Legion is exploring the fine line between supernatural (mutant power) and mental illness, and not just in the lead characters. The scientist has his own personal demons that I think is fascinating. Saying these characters had traumatic childhoods is an understatement.
The acting is top notch, especially Dan Stevens, who plays David Heller, our hero. His twitchy and troubled performance is brilliant.
My favorite scene so far is when David is speaking with his psychiatrist and the closet door is slowly creaking open. Such a tense scene.
Plus, this show offers us kooky Aubrey Plaza and Jemaine Clement.
The show is brilliant. Trust me.
Jillian Holtzmann is my new favorite mad scientist!
We’ve had Doc Brown and Egon Spangler as our prototypical good-guy mad scientist role models for so long. A great one doesn’t come around often, but Holtzmann is everything!
She’s brilliant, quirky, and endlessly hilarious. She creates the awesome, and drastically unsafe, tech with a certain flare and gusto. She fills the original role of Spengler so well, it is a honor to the late Harold Ramis.
In the face of ridicule, failure, and frightening specters, Holzman remains calm and chill until she’d ready to kick some ghost buttock. Her delight at their discoveries is refreshing and her inventions full of imagination and flash.
“We put a ghost in a box!”
Kate Mckinnen is fabulous in the role and brought the character to life. The interwebs keep speculating on Holzman’s sexual orientation, but I love that they chose to make it ambiguous and mysterious. She stays between no lines, and the most important accomplishment for her character was finding a family unit that accepted her for who she was no matter what.
“Safety lights are for dudes.”
Submitted the draft of my manuscript to my editor!!!
As I progress through this process of getting a book published, I’m grateful that my manuscript is going through an editor. I know people who have a love/hate relationship with this part of the process, and even though I’m a bit nervous about the editing comments I will get, I am thrilled to be getting them. I love the story I created that is inside my head. I don’t know if I’ve translated that story onto paper as effectively as I hoped. An editor it going to help me achieve that vision.
The best bit of correspondence between me and Immortal Works, my publisher, other than “we want to publish it” is as follows:
“I’m really excited for this book, and together I know we can make Devil in the Microscope a success!”
Thanks Jason!
I’m excited too.
Check out my book announcement at Immortal Works
It’s officially announced at Immortal Works. My mug is there staring back at you. My book’s description is there for all to read. See it all at Immortal Works.
So, what am I doing now? I’m editing like mad, hoping to provide a slick copy for my edit to really sink his or her teeth into, so we can make my book’s words as fantastic as the story is in my head. I should be assigned an editor soon. When I hand off the manuscript, I’m going to dive head first into another project, probably the sequal, but I have another novel that is already 50,000 words long and a complete story. I still have a lot of work to do on that one before it will be ready to send out. Will it be about a mad scientist? You’ll have to wait to find out.
In other news:
My book is going to be published
After many queries to agents and publishers, my book is going to be published. I just signed the contract with Immortal Works Press to publish my novel, Devil in the Microscope.
Devil in the Microscope follows Anika as she moves in with her scientist father in a town he built around his mysterious genetics laboratory. Most of the town are scientists employed by her father, and Anika discovers that the whole town is literally mad, mad like Dr. Frankenstein mad. Anika navigates her way through high school, fending off wayward science projects, vindictive evil geniuses, and the possible threat that her father might be using her for his grand experiment.
Anika finds allies at her new high school, other kids also being experimented on, and they unite around Anika to defeat the mounting threats to their lives. Anika relies on her scientific skills, her wits, and the unusual talents of her new friends to survive.
I love this story and these characters. I’m just starting the editing process, but I can’t wait until I can get my story into people’s greedy hands. It’s coming…
The Mad Science and Friendship of Stranger Things
Stranger Things by the Duffer Brothers and Netflix is simply fantastic storytelling. Sure, the 80s nostalgia and ode to 80s cinema are prevalent and entertaining, but the heart and soul of this show is rooted in the familiar human experience, just as poignant today as it was back then. The kids in Stranger Things explore what it truly means to be friends, and then the show challenges those assumptions again and again as the threat level rises.
Spoiler Warning from here on out…
The mad science of this show is the backdrop. The mysterious girl, Eleven, played brilliantly by Millie Bobby Brown, escapes from the governmental science facility the same time that the monster invades the town. We find out through the episodes that the experiments have been going on since before 11 was born. The scientist raised her to be a weapon and pushed her to extremes, even encouraging her to attempt to communicate with the monster.
In 11’s world, she has no friends. Among the scientist and assistants she lives around, only one man is someone she calls family. The father figure she calls papa is perhaps worse than the monster itself. His ruthless drive to uncover the scientific mysteries mirrors the monster’s purely instinctive need to feed.
Even eleven realizes that the monster is just being true to itself when she confesses to Mike that she is the monster because her power and lack of control caused the incident in the first place. Mike rejects her proposition, insisting that she isn’t the monster, but is trying to protect them from the bad guys.
Mathew Modine play the mad scientist with a very blank personality, despite his mad scientist hair. His drive and carelessness for 11’s life and the lives of the townsfolk and underlings is clear megalomania inspired by Frankenstein and Moreau. His creation is 11, a force he cannot control. The monster was unleashed because he cared more about the experiment than the girl that called him papa. When he loses control of 11 and the monster, his become reckless. He even loses his life to his work. That’s some classic consequences of mad scienting. Textbook, but effective.
Perhaps his most cruel act, though, was using 11’s need for family and friends, and his role as her surrogate father, to control her and push her into violent and disturbing acts.
We see through all the other characters that defeating the monster is only accomplished by relying on friends. Mike, Lucas, Dustin and 11 all need each other to survive. Jonathan and Nancy try to fight alone, but are only able to succeed together, with Steve growing up at the end in time to help. Even the stubborn soloist, Hopper, finally teams up with Joyce at the end. Friendship is the driving force in Stranger Things, and it is fabulous.
This show transcends the 80’s nostalgia and movie references that it is built upon by telling a great story. I can’t wait for season 2.
Tales from SaltCON, a Northern Utah Board Game Convention
In March, I attended a board game convention in Northern Utah called SaltCON as a part of the Meeple Nation Podcast. As podcast hosts, Nathan, Brent, and I ran several social deduction games, including Two Rooms and a Boom!, Ultimate Werewolf, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, and Live Codenames. We also recorded podcasts with industry insiders, including game designers, developers, game store owners and game manufacturers. To read my full review, check out my post at Meeple Nation here: http://meeplenation.com/gaming-life/meeple-nation-saltcon-2016/.
