Its nuts how much stuff there used to be on the internet about the Draka and now how there's basically nothing. I know the franchise is old and people move on but man your work is one of only like three channels that have even mentioned the Draka and probably the only one doing any real analysis.
yeah mostly stuff from the 90s, there's some wargaming sheets, Pete's Draka page, something called Proof Through the Night I think, probably have to use the internet archive to find any of it.@@thedragondemands5186
yeah, old stuff like Pete's Draka Page, something called Proof Through the Night, stuff hosted on the early AH sites, old wargaming sheets, usenet, etc. Probably need the Internet Archive to find any of it. @@thedragondemands5186
This is fantastic. Excellent deep dive into the lore of this weird little universe that always intrigued and confused me as a kid. Your channel is slept-on, you're gonna go places soon, I CAN FEEL IT. Side note: My father ignored their actual name, and referred to the aliens as "Mandy Patinkinoids." I do not know why that is a core memory for me.
Vague memory here. One of the cops was called Sykes. Which in their language is a bit like their ultimate insult "Syeeks-ah" Which means "Your mother mates out of season ".
Now I'm going to have to watch the movie again, because I remember that Sykes was equivalent to shithead, the literal meaning being two words, respectively, meaning cranium and excrement.
@kiethhammer6882 I think you're right. His name sounds like 'see eks ah' which means $hithead . There's another scene in a bar where he's trying to arrest an alien perp, and that guy uses the insult. Which may be 'slocah'.
The aliens genetically engineered go be compliant slaves makes me think of the Grineer from Warframe. They had pacifism and obedience geneticly coded and used for dangerous jobs like asteroid mining. Drafted into a war their masters were losing and given agression as well as free-ish thought, the scale of the war meant safeguards to keep still docile workers and now violent soldiers separate didn't always work, leading to a rebellion.
I just wanted to say great job and thanks. You have quickly become one of the best TH-cam channels and probably the best when it comes to sci-fi and entertainment. Instead of just griping about acting, budget production etc (and much of late is rightly so), you are actually focusing on the stories and the themes and questions they address. Well done.
Your parting comment reminded me of a recently passed friend, who in the late 80's ran a Hero Games Superhero campaign, which eventually introduced the Tenktonese, and then we found out, the Tenktonese were another genetically modified slave case of the Final Breed Draka (when Stirling introduced time travel and alternative time lines, such things became possible)
As always, it is an excellent discussion of a favorite topic. As you mentioned, the series had a lot of missed potential, even if the cast did a very good job with the material they did have. They made a good cop show while exploring many different themes. I hope it is revisited and expanded. It deserves another look. Never mind, there was so much left untapped in that universe.
It has been since I was a kid that I saw this show. You’re probably not wrong. I still like it as a better series with the allegory of the minority but also with them being aliens allowed for some sci-fi stories without making the newcomers truly dangerous say psychics or vampire are like True Blood or Mutants in X-Men.
I love the idea of the X-men. But the moment in the second or third movie, when Ian Mckellen is lifting the entire Golden Gate Bridge, and flying around on it, I was out.
Just discovered your channel yesterday as I was sitting around home sick with shingles looking for some way to do nothing. You have a great perspective on things. I read SciFi and war books as a kid and even joined the military. Now 50 years later I find myself agreeing more and more with Smedly Butler. You and Colin Headen(sp?) of Forgotten History should get together and do a joint episode.
@@feralhistorian Yeah, and as much as a patriot that I was (and hopefully still am). Its a tough day when you realize how the power brokers are constantly trading up lives for gold. Its souring to see how quickly a dove can be turned into a hawk once they rebalance their portfolio. btw I love your shots from SD. Contemplating a move there.
@@feralhistoriancan you make a video on the tv series named beforeigners (2019) in the series humans from different time periods of the past continually arrive in the modern day and age all over the world the series takes mainly place in oslo the capitol city of norway where the time migrants (the humans from the past who are from the stone age viking age and victorian era) are trying to intergrate into the modern day and age i really hope feral historian make a video on beforeigners
Harlan Ellison once told me O’Bannon called him up bragging about selling the pitch to the movie. Harlan asked him about it, and then just tore into O’Bannon for being so damn lazy with the concept. He lived the freed slave angle, but a mismatched buddy cop movie about busting a drug ring really was the absolute least interesting thing you could do with it. The series was better, but it kept retconning their history, giving them a religion and a hypothetical homeworld and crap like that, which felt really cliche and made them less mysterious, and removed the threat of the masters coming to reclaim their property. The idea of tabula rasa slaves, now freed, and forced to find meaning in their lives was really more interesting. To me, anyway.
You get stuck with trying to find a story to tell within the happening circumstances. As an example, in the movie "Fatherland (1994)" The topic it is trying to tell, is that Germany has won WW2 in Europe. But... what is the story actually going to be about? You can't really just put camera down and follow some dudes living their lives. And so, they create a murder mystery that is all happening within this 1960s Nazi Germany. We now have a reason to follow these characters. They are moving from A to B with purpose in mind. All while the background and the things they are interacting with, is 1960s Nazi Germany. You need a catalyst of sorts. And that's not an easy thing to come up with. Worldbuilding is easy. Trying to find a place to put the camera down for what has to be a singular cohesive story? Not so easy.
Thinking about this, and I just realized that that Will Smith Netflix* show was _Alien Nation_ in fantasy drag. Because the idea of making the protagonists a couple of cops isn't bad; you've got an excuse to follow the same people interacting with all levels of society, so the audience can see how the changed circumstances made a difference, with commentary from a couple of perspectives, without introducing a huge number of characters. * Google suggests _Bright._
I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I wish it could have gone further. There were also the novels that had a pretty good run of volumes (8 or so, IIRC) Thanks for shining another light upon the Before Times fiction.
Wasn't there a tv-series from the late 90's about a new species of humans developing, plotting in secret to take-over the human species? The bit at the end just reminded me of that. Also - great to see something about Alien Nation, quite possibly one of my biggest guilty pleasures.
I still remember this show very fondly! I particularly enjoyed its treatment of religious themes. And Andreas Katsoulas (memory eternal) was of course amazing in his guest role. Thanks for this thoughtful exploration.
Love this channel. One of my instant faves, i eat it all up. A Book series i been deep into that might be worth looking into is the series STARFIST by David Sherman and Dan Cragg.
I am rewatching this- while doing housework. ``The harder we worked- the more of the drug we got - to work in the mines.'' There is a model for this in History. The Inka and the Spanish used bonded labour to mine and farm the Andes. The Spanish and Inka used coca leaf to manage their labour force. Specifically both empires used Coca leaf, which in its untreated form is a mild stimulant, a bit like tobacco. Like tobacco Coca leaf will stop you eating since you feel less hunger. Apparently you can work people to death using coca leaf. Imagine the pre contact Inka empire. Everyone from Quito in Ecuador to the NW tip of Argentina- An area the size of the US Pacific Coastal is paying up taxes to someone in Cusco- Someone who they have never seen. Their overseers, are the same tribe. They now pay taxes to the Inka in Cusco- similar the arround Mediterranean , people of a small town were paying taxes to Alexander- than Rome, than the Sultan,. So this Crash of the ship in LA is the Latin American war of Independence.
Excellent summation of the series. If you can find a copy, the tie-in novel Day of Descent goes into some detail about the nature and history of the Newcomers, the Overseers, and life on the ship. It's a lot of fun to read!
This was a strange one, I dimly remember trailers for this as a kid. Didn’t help that background lore was hard to come by on the web for years, short of actually tracking down the series which I never had sufficient interest to track down, and don’t recall stumbling across it whilst casually browsing various streaming services.
I remember watching this about a decade back. Pretty decent show, although outdated like many other shows with the episodic nature. Plenty of interesting themes although some of them were a bit too on the nose...
I really liked it when it first ran and was pleasantly surprised to see that it still holds up fairly well. Terribly dated of course, but not a bad show.
I'm among those who wish this series had lasted longer. One question I wanted answered was when we'd get to see the "Slaver" race - the beings who subjugated the people of Tencton. Given that the Tenctonese were shown to be stronger, smarter and more technologically advanced than Earth Humans - but they still ended up enslaved - this implies whoever did this was even stronger, smarter and more advanced - not to mention downright "meaner." Even if Earth (both Humans and Tenctonese) could "refloat" the crashed slave transport and arm it with nuclear missiles, it wouldn't be enough to stop the slavers from retrieving their 'property' (plus eight billion more) if they wanted to. As a sidebar, I remember in one of the novels there was an effort to make Earth 'quieter' and not broadcast excessive transmissions into space for fear of attracting the Slaver Race's attention. As you say, Missed Opportunities. Thanks for making and sharing. 435th Like.
I need to do a lore-dive and play a bit. Deus Ex was out during one of those periods when I just wasn't gaming much so I missed out, but I'm told it's worth the time.
@@feralhistorian It is, but if your just looking for a lore dump on it, there are a few mods you can use to make the experience a little more palatable. Personally I don't use them, but Dues Ex came out when that kind of game was still sort of a novelty, and like all trail blazers, it was ahead of its time while still being very rooted in the game play conventions of the time. The gun play in particular is pretty shit, even from a "its trying to be realistic" perspective. But its the story that people play it for and its one of the best in gaming. Invisible war is very hit or miss, but the endings are good Human revolution is almost the opposite of the first game, it plays like a sports car but it has a story line that feels like its trying to rip off metal-gear after only playing the first half of snake eater, and that becomes really apparent when you have to deal with the "End-o-tron 5000" at the end of the game. and I never got around to playing Mankind Divided.
Hey Feral Historian, i know this question is off subject, but I wanted to ask what part of making a video is the most difficult for you?? Is it writing the script, filming or editing that you feel is tedious?? I'm asking because I haven't been able to come up with a good script for a video lately and so I haven't been uploading. I see you are uploading consistently and wanted to know what process of video creation do you find difficult and easy.
For me the most frustrating thing is heading outside on a nice, clear day, only to get up on a mountain and find howling winds and seemingly the entire 28th Bomb WIng flying over, making usable audio impossible to record. Otherwise, the line seems to be on why I want to do a video in the first place. A few times I've started things primarily because I thought I should cover them or that it would grow the audience, and usually I don't finish those. But if I start something just because I think it's cool (even if I'm kind of dumping on certain aspects, like Space Above and Beyond) it usually just flows. Sometimes technical issues get in the way, but that's its own thing. That hasn't been a recipe for rapid channel growth and financial gain, but it's never felt like work either.
The one thing I always remember about this show and movies was a short scene in the intro when you a female alien in a street corner dress as a "Lady of the night"
I remember when this came up but i dont remember why i did not keep up with the episode so am missing out on what story threads were not use. The show had a good mystery box that was really play with much. Who were their masters/ where are they/ how they got to earth. I think from the tv show they revolted on the ship and made their way to earth (correct me if am wrong as am fuzzy on details and may be mixing it up with other shows) I like the idea of new collected immigrants trying to make their way into a new worlds as they explore what that all could man and it not till i see this video that i never consider the fact they were a genetically engineer species and not a natural one. Which mean part of the show could be removing some of their genetic handicap for future generation like making breeding easier witch each other. The fact that the strong male is the guarding of the child toward the later stage of life seem weird. We only seen stuff like this when the female is the provider and the transferring is only so the female can go to providing as soon as possible. At least this aliens did not go into the spider route and have the female kill the male in a freenzy of lust and food stock for her young. overall the few time i did watch an episode i always felt it was well made and enjoyable.
On the topic of human and engineered labor interactions, have you seen the Exo-Squad animated series from the mid-90s? It's underrated, overlooked, and unfortunately got canceled after only two seasons. I think you would appreciate it.
I saw a couple random episodes of Exo-Squad back when it was on, enough to be aware of its existence but not enough to know anything about its story. I'll look for it in the next old sci-fi safari.
I never see alien nation the show but read a fanfic with the same name that has kinda similar concepts and ideas to the show. The web novel it's based on sexy space babes is an erotic scifi web novel about an imperial alien race with a high birthrate of females invaded Earth and is set a couple decades after the invasion, where mc is gets into a bar fight with an alien and has to choose between prison or the military (from what i remember). The story in my opinion is trash, but the fanfic is great it! It's like if Red dawn was terror group and had more high school drama. The mc has to manage his two different lives one as the masked leader of a resistance and the other the as the Imperium's Golden Boy that loves and is dating a noble alien. With both sides that maybe trying to kill him while he's still trying to find out who he is. Not sure if you'll find this intresting but it's one of my favorite fictions.
re The Newcomers being once Humans In one of the episodes, a second mothership is detected. Or there are plans to reactivate the mothership-I forget what. Specifically the Overseers talk about taking people from the cities of Southern India to use as slave labour. That bit I do remember
Instead of a catalyst reaction for the mating procedure, it could be more like one male has the nutrients for the sperm and the other has the sperm. And this state could naturally fluctuate like periods, except when they get their chemical dosing which then regulates a certain percentage to each state. Alternatively, with the modified human route you could have the puritans kill all the catalyst males, but then it turns out via the romance subplot that human males can also catalyze the process. This cross species catalyzing could cause occasional hybrids to form. They could have the same physical abilities as the new comers, but with the drug resistance of a human. I also think it would be more interesting if the overseer was an AI that the newcomer species had originally created to run their society. Perhaps over generations the AI slowly altered their genetics to make each individual an ideal unit for society.
I am noting that the oddly affected occupant of my nation's highest office has begun referring to the horde of illegal aliens as Newcomers, as saying how these Newcomers built America - such a logical inconsistency, Let's Go Brandon !
Going through videos I’ve missed found this one. There is talks of an attempted reboots. Compared to X-Men or most other allegories it did a fundamentally better job than most. I haven’t seen district 9 but as for the super strength, ability to live in harsher climates and other superior ties on humans they still for the most part it allows the creativity of sci-fi others while taking a grounded notions of racism and cultural exchange where you take Rogue or cyclops with no controls over there power or the threat of Magneto and Professor X that could just Will new laws if he gets near world leaders. Thought Professor X doesn’t do that can we trust him with that kind of power is a question that has more considerations than wowed makeup. Then you got vampires that we are sustenance to them so how would that work if they “came out of the coffin”. Unfortunately to make a show like alienation be a show for a wider audience some of the “closed over aspects” probably needed to be limited to try and get a wider appeal but that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant or pushes boundaries. I wish the overseers and who did the enslaving that appeared to be different groups and should have been explored since the final tv movie kind of balked on paying off the implied third species making it seem like the overseers were the masters rather than just higher ranked slaves. I just hope if it does get redone they have the depth of the original. Like in one of the tv movies the punk that tried to “bag the slag” daughter of Cisco or when Sikes got mad because of a bigot and Cisco was cool. When Sikes asked why he got more crap Cisco his friend and partner said “because I expect better from you.” Those are the kind of things that I think made this show amazing. Where I fear modern writers might not be able to keep there own woke egos in check and really make this world feel real versus a flat virtue signal with no understanding of the complexities of real society. Some people will be harmed by New Comers taking jobs, some people will feel they are taking resources from their own lives or think they don’t have souls because God made humans but not new comers (real implied belief by a woman In the show).
That pregnancy thing is wild! I read it as she needs one to provide the juice and another who can get her to orgzm lol like human women with a husband to provide the material needs and a lover on the side to keep her satisfied.
I can't stand reboots but this is an idea worth rebooting. That said, it doesn't speak to current concerns. People who care about diversity don't want aliens as stand ins for other races and genders, they just want the latter.
I always wondered if that might actually be the biggest obstacle to interspecies relationships in that show. "We got along really well and then she cracked open the rancid milk and I had to get out of there."
When it comes to creations of Rockne S. O'Bannon typically you want a writing team that can add darkness and more characterization to his stories as he tends to build feminist central figures with sort of the Gene Roddenberry ideals. When he created Farscape he had Justin Monjo and David Kemper and The Henson Company on creative. Alien Nation he admittedly had nothing to do with the show so it went off the network tv rails with over politization. I think with Defiance you can kind of see it falling off the rails again the production was high for the show however you had 5 producers all writing giving Rockne way too much personal control he didnt have a Brian Henson and David Kemper to steer the soul of the show. You have to keep one foot in the door with that guy.
Only vaguely remember glimpses of the show or latter films.....like Battlestar Galactica in the early 2000's this seems like a concept ahead of its time that could use a reboot.....though I'm afraid if made today it would be a woke allegory with none of the charm or depth of the source material.
It is a heavy topic. Not just that, but just having that conversation goes against the current mainstream 'thought' of today. Even trying to talk about it is punishable by jail here in Norway. The topics that the show covers are simply not possible to have today. Nobody would sign off on it. And nobody would certainly pay for it.
@@Hugebull I knew it was bad in Sweden, sorry to heard Norway is having the same problems.....though there are probably just a few western nations where open conversations are still risk free.
@@darrenrenna Freedom of Speech doesn't exist in any European country as far I am aware. Or rather, to rephrase that, Europe has enshrined Freedom of Speech in most legal codes and constitutions. BUT, 'Hate Speech Laws' supersedes the Freedom of Speech guarantee. To use current Norwegian law as an example. If one person says something that another person finds insulting on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, et cetera. That person can call the police. And the person accused now has to prove to the police that what was said was not insulting. Now, if two people talk about something that another person finds insulting on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, et cetera. The whole thing escalates to a whole new level, and the people involved could easily face multiple years in prison. This is rarely enforced. But the law is still there. And when the official law literally uses the term "feeling insulted" to define if there has been a crime or not.... Well, you get it, fun times ahead. We abolished Juries from our legal system years ago. Which means once accused, you will go in front of a council of judges, who are all educated from, I believe, 2 or 3 Universities. Good luck explaining to them that what you said was indeed not insulting...
The "New Comers" having a salt water issue made it seem unusual they would settle in US coastal areas, cities with 🏖.
Perhaps they like the climate of coastal cities in spite of the dangers. Also, coastal cities are, on average, wealthier than non-coastal cities.
They generally settled in the Southwest.
Feral Historian is quickly becoming one of my absolute favourite TH-cam channels.
Cheers from Denmark
@@careypridgeon Do it!
@@Emanon... Same!
Også mig du gamle
look forward to more Draka content
It's coming. There's some bad audio to fix and new artwork to make, but there will be more Draka.
Its nuts how much stuff there used to be on the internet about the Draka and now how there's basically nothing. I know the franchise is old and people move on but man your work is one of only like three channels that have even mentioned the Draka and probably the only one doing any real analysis.
@@Ghoulonoid used to be a lot? I missed it
yeah mostly stuff from the 90s, there's some wargaming sheets, Pete's Draka page, something called Proof Through the Night I think, probably have to use the internet archive to find any of it.@@thedragondemands5186
yeah, old stuff like Pete's Draka Page, something called Proof Through the Night, stuff hosted on the early AH sites, old wargaming sheets, usenet, etc. Probably need the Internet Archive to find any of it. @@thedragondemands5186
This is fantastic. Excellent deep dive into the lore of this weird little universe that always intrigued and confused me as a kid. Your channel is slept-on, you're gonna go places soon, I CAN FEEL IT.
Side note: My father ignored their actual name, and referred to the aliens as "Mandy Patinkinoids." I do not know why that is a core memory for me.
And henceforth they are Patinkinoids for me too.
Love your channel, super underrated. Definitely gives me a "Paul Harrell Does SciFi" vibe. Keep 'em coming!
Ah... A man of culture!
Vague memory here. One of the cops was called Sykes. Which in their language is a bit like their ultimate insult "Syeeks-ah" Which means "Your mother mates out of season ".
Now I'm going to have to watch the movie again, because I remember that Sykes was equivalent to shithead, the literal meaning being two words, respectively, meaning cranium and excrement.
@kiethhammer6882 I think you're right. His name sounds like 'see eks ah' which means $hithead . There's another scene in a bar where he's trying to arrest an alien perp, and that guy uses the insult. Which may be 'slocah'.
@@richardrobinson1651The term was "ss'loka", which means "small but intelligent creature".
The aliens genetically engineered go be compliant slaves makes me think of the Grineer from Warframe. They had pacifism and obedience geneticly coded and used for dangerous jobs like asteroid mining. Drafted into a war their masters were losing and given agression as well as free-ish thought, the scale of the war meant safeguards to keep still docile workers and now violent soldiers separate didn't always work, leading to a rebellion.
Only an algorithm would fight a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Algorithms would fight a war on twelve fronts.
I just wanted to say great job and thanks.
You have quickly become one of the best TH-cam channels and probably the best when it comes to sci-fi and entertainment.
Instead of just griping about acting, budget production etc (and much of late is rightly so), you are actually focusing on the stories and the themes and questions they address.
Well done.
Your parting comment reminded me of a recently passed friend, who in the late 80's ran a Hero Games Superhero campaign, which eventually introduced the Tenktonese, and then we found out, the Tenktonese were another genetically modified slave case of the Final Breed Draka (when Stirling introduced time travel and alternative time lines, such things became possible)
As always, it is an excellent discussion of a favorite topic. As you mentioned, the series had a lot of missed potential, even if the cast did a very good job with the material they did have. They made a good cop show while exploring many different themes. I hope it is revisited and expanded. It deserves another look. Never mind, there was so much left untapped in that universe.
It has been since I was a kid that I saw this show. You’re probably not wrong. I still like it as a better series with the allegory of the minority but also with them being aliens allowed for some sci-fi stories without making the newcomers truly dangerous say psychics or vampire are like True Blood or Mutants in X-Men.
I love the idea of the X-men. But the moment in the second or third movie, when Ian Mckellen is lifting the entire Golden Gate Bridge, and flying around on it, I was out.
5:49 Damn, that's a beautiful line. And Mandy Patinkin really sells it.
I used to watch Alien Nation on SciFi all the time and the movie anytime it was on TV.
Just discovered your channel yesterday as I was sitting around home sick with shingles looking for some way to do nothing. You have a great perspective on things. I read SciFi and war books as a kid and even joined the military. Now 50 years later I find myself agreeing more and more with Smedly Butler. You and Colin Headen(sp?) of Forgotten History should get together and do a joint episode.
I have been known to hand people copies of "War is a Racket" on occasion.
@@feralhistorian Yeah, and as much as a patriot that I was (and hopefully still am). Its a tough day when you realize how the power brokers are constantly trading up lives for gold. Its souring to see how quickly a dove can be turned into a hawk once they rebalance their portfolio. btw I love your shots from SD. Contemplating a move there.
@@feralhistoriancan you make a video on the tv series named beforeigners (2019) in the series humans from different time periods of the past continually arrive in the modern day and age all over the world the series takes mainly place in oslo the capitol city of norway where the time migrants (the humans from the past who are from the stone age viking age and victorian era) are trying to intergrate into the modern day and age i really hope feral historian make a video on beforeigners
Harlan Ellison once told me O’Bannon called him up bragging about selling the pitch to the movie. Harlan asked him about it, and then just tore into O’Bannon for being so damn lazy with the concept. He lived the freed slave angle, but a mismatched buddy cop movie about busting a drug ring really was the absolute least interesting thing you could do with it.
The series was better, but it kept retconning their history, giving them a religion and a hypothetical homeworld and crap like that, which felt really cliche and made them less mysterious, and removed the threat of the masters coming to reclaim their property. The idea of tabula rasa slaves, now freed, and forced to find meaning in their lives was really more interesting. To me, anyway.
You get stuck with trying to find a story to tell within the happening circumstances. As an example, in the movie "Fatherland (1994)"
The topic it is trying to tell, is that Germany has won WW2 in Europe. But... what is the story actually going to be about?
You can't really just put camera down and follow some dudes living their lives. And so, they create a murder mystery that is all happening within this 1960s Nazi Germany.
We now have a reason to follow these characters. They are moving from A to B with purpose in mind.
All while the background and the things they are interacting with, is 1960s Nazi Germany.
You need a catalyst of sorts. And that's not an easy thing to come up with.
Worldbuilding is easy.
Trying to find a place to put the camera down for what has to be a singular cohesive story? Not so easy.
Thinking about this, and I just realized that that Will Smith Netflix* show was _Alien Nation_ in fantasy drag.
Because the idea of making the protagonists a couple of cops isn't bad; you've got an excuse to follow the same people interacting with all levels of society, so the audience can see how the changed circumstances made a difference, with commentary from a couple of perspectives, without introducing a huge number of characters.
* Google suggests _Bright._
I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I wish it could have gone further.
There were also the novels that had a pretty good run of volumes (8 or so, IIRC)
Thanks for shining another light upon the Before Times fiction.
It should be interesting to hear your take on the Draka.
There are draka videos further back in his catalogue.
Wasn't there a tv-series from the late 90's about a new species of humans developing, plotting in secret to take-over the human species? The bit at the end just reminded me of that.
Also - great to see something about Alien Nation, quite possibly one of my biggest guilty pleasures.
I really, REALLY liked the series and a few of the movies. It was a pretty cool concept.
I still remember this show very fondly! I particularly enjoyed its treatment of religious themes. And Andreas Katsoulas (memory eternal) was of course amazing in his guest role. Thanks for this thoughtful exploration.
Love this channel. One of my instant faves, i eat it all up. A Book series i been deep into that might be worth looking into is the series STARFIST by David Sherman and Dan Cragg.
I am rewatching this- while doing housework. ``The harder we worked- the more of the drug we got - to work in the mines.'' There is a model for this in History. The Inka and the Spanish used bonded labour to mine and farm the Andes. The Spanish and Inka used coca leaf to manage their labour force. Specifically both empires used Coca leaf, which in its untreated form is a mild stimulant, a bit like tobacco. Like tobacco Coca leaf will stop you eating since you feel less hunger. Apparently you can work people to death using coca leaf. Imagine the pre contact Inka empire. Everyone from Quito in Ecuador to the NW tip of Argentina- An area the size of the US Pacific Coastal is paying up taxes to someone in Cusco- Someone who they have never seen. Their overseers, are the same tribe. They now pay taxes to the Inka in Cusco- similar the arround Mediterranean , people of a small town were paying taxes to Alexander- than Rome, than the Sultan,. So this Crash of the ship in LA is the Latin American war of Independence.
Excellent summation of the series. If you can find a copy, the tie-in novel Day of Descent goes into some detail about the nature and history of the Newcomers, the Overseers, and life on the ship. It's a lot of fun to read!
Your channel is criminally underrated and you deserve to have a huge following, mate.
I really liked this movie and show
I love this movie.
Another great video. Congrats on 4k.
Working my way through Stirling's dual series' (Nantucket & the Change), would love to see you run with those stories.
I have a half-finished write up on Dies the Fire specifically that somehow I never finish. I'm going to open that file up right now.
You're having to read the Emberverse stuff? I'm sorry that's happening to you.
Loving you stuff as always I’m always looking forward to your uploads.
Them getting sozzled off spoiled milk was always really funny to me.
There stories/ideas contained/hinted at in A.N. is such fertile material to be thoughtfully rebooted in 2024
This was a strange one, I dimly remember trailers for this as a kid. Didn’t help that background lore was hard to come by on the web for years, short of actually tracking down the series which I never had sufficient interest to track down, and don’t recall stumbling across it whilst casually browsing various streaming services.
You should check out the resistance franchise
I remember watching this about a decade back. Pretty decent show, although outdated like many other shows with the episodic nature.
Plenty of interesting themes although some of them were a bit too on the nose...
I really liked it when it first ran and was pleasantly surprised to see that it still holds up fairly well. Terribly dated of course, but not a bad show.
Sam's film name was George Jetson but due to last min, legal issues the script 📕 was revised. Sam Francisco.
I'm among those who wish this series had lasted longer. One question I wanted answered was when we'd get to see the "Slaver" race - the beings who subjugated the people of Tencton. Given that the Tenctonese were shown to be stronger, smarter and more technologically advanced than Earth Humans - but they still ended up enslaved - this implies whoever did this was even stronger, smarter and more advanced - not to mention downright "meaner." Even if Earth (both Humans and Tenctonese) could "refloat" the crashed slave transport and arm it with nuclear missiles, it wouldn't be enough to stop the slavers from retrieving their 'property' (plus eight billion more) if they wanted to.
As a sidebar, I remember in one of the novels there was an effort to make Earth 'quieter' and not broadcast excessive transmissions into space for fear of attracting the Slaver Race's attention.
As you say, Missed Opportunities.
Thanks for making and sharing.
435th Like.
Honestly, can you cover Deus Ex? Or is a video game outside your wheel house?
I need to do a lore-dive and play a bit. Deus Ex was out during one of those periods when I just wasn't gaming much so I missed out, but I'm told it's worth the time.
@@feralhistorian It is, but if your just looking for a lore dump on it, there are a few mods you can use to make the experience a little more palatable. Personally I don't use them, but Dues Ex came out when that kind of game was still sort of a novelty, and like all trail blazers, it was ahead of its time while still being very rooted in the game play conventions of the time. The gun play in particular is pretty shit, even from a "its trying to be realistic" perspective. But its the story that people play it for and its one of the best in gaming.
Invisible war is very hit or miss, but the endings are good
Human revolution is almost the opposite of the first game, it plays like a sports car but it has a story line that feels like its trying to rip off metal-gear after only playing the first half of snake eater, and that becomes really apparent when you have to deal with the "End-o-tron 5000" at the end of the game.
and I never got around to playing Mankind Divided.
Hey Feral Historian, i know this question is off subject, but I wanted to ask what part of making a video is the most difficult for you?? Is it writing the script, filming or editing that you feel is tedious?? I'm asking because I haven't been able to come up with a good script for a video lately and so I haven't been uploading.
I see you are uploading consistently and wanted to know what process of video creation do you find difficult and easy.
For me the most frustrating thing is heading outside on a nice, clear day, only to get up on a mountain and find howling winds and seemingly the entire 28th Bomb WIng flying over, making usable audio impossible to record.
Otherwise, the line seems to be on why I want to do a video in the first place. A few times I've started things primarily because I thought I should cover them or that it would grow the audience, and usually I don't finish those. But if I start something just because I think it's cool (even if I'm kind of dumping on certain aspects, like Space Above and Beyond) it usually just flows. Sometimes technical issues get in the way, but that's its own thing.
That hasn't been a recipe for rapid channel growth and financial gain, but it's never felt like work either.
The one thing I always remember about this show and movies was a short scene in the intro when you a female alien in a street corner dress as a "Lady of the night"
LMFAO, thats hitting the reality mark too much !!!
I remember when this came up but i dont remember why i did not keep up with the episode so am missing out on what story threads were not use. The show had a good mystery box that was really play with much. Who were their masters/ where are they/ how they got to earth. I think from the tv show they revolted on the ship and made their way to earth (correct me if am wrong as am fuzzy on details and may be mixing it up with other shows)
I like the idea of new collected immigrants trying to make their way into a new worlds as they explore what that all could man and it not till i see this video that i never consider the fact they were a genetically engineer species and not a natural one. Which mean part of the show could be removing some of their genetic handicap for future generation like making breeding easier witch each other. The fact that the strong male is the guarding of the child toward the later stage of life seem weird. We only seen stuff like this when the female is the provider and the transferring is only so the female can go to providing as soon as possible.
At least this aliens did not go into the spider route and have the female kill the male in a freenzy of lust and food stock for her young. overall the few time i did watch an episode i always felt it was well made and enjoyable.
Nice
One of the novels lays out that the Newcomers are what H. Sap would be, if based upon levo-amino acids.
Seems like DS9 took some inspiration with the Dominion empire.
i was a teen in the 1990s so i barely remember the show and movie.
i remember salt water and an alien stripper.
On the topic of human and engineered labor interactions, have you seen the Exo-Squad animated series from the mid-90s? It's underrated, overlooked, and unfortunately got canceled after only two seasons. I think you would appreciate it.
I saw a couple random episodes of Exo-Squad back when it was on, enough to be aware of its existence but not enough to know anything about its story. I'll look for it in the next old sci-fi safari.
@@feralhistorian Happy hunting!
Something, something Chomskey? Manufacturing of concent?
Chomsky should stick to linguistics. Just like Dr. Theodore Kazcinsky should have kept writing papers about advanced mathematics.
I never see alien nation the show but read a fanfic with the same name that has kinda similar concepts and ideas to the show. The web novel it's based on sexy space babes is an erotic scifi web novel about an imperial alien race with a high birthrate of females invaded Earth and is set a couple decades after the invasion, where mc is gets into a bar fight with an alien and has to choose between prison or the military (from what i remember). The story in my opinion is trash, but the fanfic is great it! It's like if Red dawn was terror group and had more high school drama. The mc has to manage his two different lives one as the masked leader of a resistance and the other the as the Imperium's Golden Boy that loves and is dating a noble alien. With both sides that maybe trying to kill him while he's still trying to find out who he is.
Not sure if you'll find this intresting but it's one of my favorite fictions.
Any chance of getting a Robot Jox episode some day?
I had completely forgotten about Robot Jox. Slim chances, but now that I'm reminded of it I'd say greater than zero.
@@feralhistorian haha that’s certainly fair, it is pretty forgettable, dick chainsaw aside
bit unfair to say they could have done more with the concept they only had one season
The Newcomers sound like a strange version of marsupial and digger wasp.
DISTRICT 9
re The Newcomers being once Humans In one of the episodes, a second mothership is detected. Or there are plans to reactivate the mothership-I forget what. Specifically the Overseers talk about taking people from the cities of Southern India to use as slave labour. That bit I do remember
Do you ever get the feeling the entertainment industry occasionally trolls the citizenry?
Ayyy let’s gooo
Instead of a catalyst reaction for the mating procedure, it could be more like one male has the nutrients for the sperm and the other has the sperm. And this state could naturally fluctuate like periods, except when they get their chemical dosing which then regulates a certain percentage to each state. Alternatively, with the modified human route you could have the puritans kill all the catalyst males, but then it turns out via the romance subplot that human males can also catalyze the process. This cross species catalyzing could cause occasional hybrids to form. They could have the same physical abilities as the new comers, but with the drug resistance of a human.
I also think it would be more interesting if the overseer was an AI that the newcomer species had originally created to run their society. Perhaps over generations the AI slowly altered their genetics to make each individual an ideal unit for society.
San Francisco, open your Golden Gate, open your doors and let me in!
I am noting that the oddly affected occupant of my nation's highest office has begun referring to the horde of illegal aliens as Newcomers, as saying how these Newcomers built America - such a logical inconsistency, Let's Go Brandon !
I found the movie underwhelming, but I loved the tv show.
1:08 Why do these "people" invariably wind up in tacky clothes and underground?
Going through videos I’ve missed found this one. There is talks of an attempted reboots. Compared to X-Men or most other allegories it did a fundamentally better job than most. I haven’t seen district 9 but as for the super strength, ability to live in harsher climates and other superior ties on humans they still for the most part it allows the creativity of sci-fi others while taking a grounded notions of racism and cultural exchange where you take Rogue or cyclops with no controls over there power or the threat of Magneto and Professor X that could just Will new laws if he gets near world leaders. Thought Professor X doesn’t do that can we trust him with that kind of power is a question that has more considerations than wowed makeup. Then you got vampires that we are sustenance to them so how would that work if they “came out of the coffin”. Unfortunately to make a show like alienation be a show for a wider audience some of the “closed over aspects” probably needed to be limited to try and get a wider appeal but that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant or pushes boundaries. I wish the overseers and who did the enslaving that appeared to be different groups and should have been explored since the final tv movie kind of balked on paying off the implied third species making it seem like the overseers were the masters rather than just higher ranked slaves. I just hope if it does get redone they have the depth of the original. Like in one of the tv movies the punk that tried to “bag the slag” daughter of Cisco or when Sikes got mad because of a bigot and Cisco was cool. When Sikes asked why he got more crap Cisco his friend and partner said “because I expect better from you.” Those are the kind of things that I think made this show amazing. Where I fear modern writers might not be able to keep there own woke egos in check and really make this world feel real versus a flat virtue signal with no understanding of the complexities of real society. Some people will be harmed by New Comers taking jobs, some people will feel they are taking resources from their own lives or think they don’t have souls because God made humans but not new comers (real implied belief by a woman In the show).
That pregnancy thing is wild! I read it as she needs one to provide the juice and another who can get her to orgzm lol like human women with a husband to provide the material needs and a lover on the side to keep her satisfied.
Alien Nation & District Nine are the exact same idea; but told through the different sides of the immigration policy spectrum.
I can't stand reboots but this is an idea worth rebooting. That said, it doesn't speak to current concerns. People who care about diversity don't want aliens as stand ins for other races and genders, they just want the latter.
That's a great metaphor for people who live in an autocracic state. That's very much like Russia right now...
District 9 seem to be better in every way.
Started off with Potential, that's every sci-fi tv show in the 90's, cept for Earth Final Battle. That was just bad.
The answers are not in your Mr. Spock book. Dr. Spock....Mr. Spock is one of you guys
Who’s up for curdled milk?
I always wondered if that might actually be the biggest obstacle to interspecies relationships in that show. "We got along really well and then she cracked open the rancid milk and I had to get out of there."
Imma soak in a nice salt bath while enjoying some carbonated beverages.
@@feralhistorian Kinda like that time I showed up with a 18yo scotch and she broke out a bottle of Boones. two different worlds..
To be fair, rancid milk is the deal breaker of many relationships.
@@peterhessedal8539 That is . . . harsh.
Steve Martin or a made-up twin.
When it comes to creations of Rockne S. O'Bannon typically you want a writing team that can add darkness and more characterization to his stories as he tends to build feminist central figures with sort of the Gene Roddenberry ideals. When he created Farscape he had Justin Monjo and David Kemper and The Henson Company on creative. Alien Nation he admittedly had nothing to do with the show so it went off the network tv rails with over politization. I think with Defiance you can kind of see it falling off the rails again the production was high for the show however you had 5 producers all writing giving Rockne way too much personal control he didnt have a Brian Henson and David Kemper to steer the soul of the show. You have to keep one foot in the door with that guy.
Only vaguely remember glimpses of the show or latter films.....like Battlestar Galactica in the early 2000's this seems like a concept ahead of its time that could use a reboot.....though I'm afraid if made today it would be a woke allegory with none of the charm or depth of the source material.
It is a heavy topic. Not just that, but just having that conversation goes against the current mainstream 'thought' of today. Even trying to talk about it is punishable by jail here in Norway.
The topics that the show covers are simply not possible to have today.
Nobody would sign off on it. And nobody would certainly pay for it.
@@Hugebull I knew it was bad in Sweden, sorry to heard Norway is having the same problems.....though there are probably just a few western nations where open conversations are still risk free.
@@darrenrenna Freedom of Speech doesn't exist in any European country as far I am aware. Or rather, to rephrase that, Europe has enshrined Freedom of Speech in most legal codes and constitutions. BUT, 'Hate Speech Laws' supersedes the Freedom of Speech guarantee.
To use current Norwegian law as an example.
If one person says something that another person finds insulting on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, et cetera. That person can call the police. And the person accused now has to prove to the police that what was said was not insulting.
Now, if two people talk about something that another person finds insulting on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, et cetera. The whole thing escalates to a whole new level, and the people involved could easily face multiple years in prison.
This is rarely enforced. But the law is still there.
And when the official law literally uses the term "feeling insulted" to define if there has been a crime or not.... Well, you get it, fun times ahead.
We abolished Juries from our legal system years ago.
Which means once accused, you will go in front of a council of judges, who are all educated from, I believe, 2 or 3 Universities.
Good luck explaining to them that what you said was indeed not insulting...
@@Hugebull truly saddening.