I appreciate that following of EU as well, which actually lasted longer the “old” era, with the new spanning from 1999 to 2014. It’s still good, just different.

I cut off at 1999 because that’s when The Phantom Menace came out. I still enjoy what that following era of the EU became, but TPM completely transformed the shape of the Star Wars EU. While the pre- and post- TPM EU is still officially the same continuity, the texture was so changed that you can easily treat them as two different visions of Star Wars.

I’m incredibly curious if the pulled A-Life 2.0 code is still in the game somewhere. If modders implement it and get it populating in a sufficiently large radius it will really cement this game as a mainstay for a long time.

Star Wars, specifically the universe created by the EU from 1991 to 1999. It was a wide open wild west of ideas. The details of the clone wars hadn’t been established, Anakin Skywalker as the chosen one didn’t exist, and there was just such a massive variety of content.

He seems like he follows whatever gives him the best position. Projecting moderation to the west is a no-brainer, but he also has to contend with projecting the correct stance to the groups inside Syria and that is likely going to be a much less moderate one.

There is also the outside factors of Russia, Iran, and the US. There are a lot of considerations for all of them and I won’t even pretend to predict how they will all act and react, but I do want acknowledge they can and likely will all drastically affect Syria.

I see your meaning, and this kind of confusion is exactly why Section 31 is so tricky to put in a story. It’s a secret handshake club, which may well go to the highest levels, but it doesn’t have official paperwork. There are likely varying levels of being in the know. Certainly many high ranking members of Starfleet know of S31, but opinions may vary in a sliding scale from “actively partaking in it” to “knowing it exists but choosing to look the other way” to “hearing it exists but assuming it’s mostly overblown rumors”.

Nobody is going to FOIA request the Section 31 files from Starfleet some day. That’s the difference between it and “CIA but in Space” that modern writing treats it as.

Backing by high individuals is a still a conspiratorial entity.

What I don’t like about the trailer is the implication Section 31 has official Starfleet oversight to reel it in from being too crazy. The whole idea is that it is a rogue entity with no oversight.

Likely the HTS, which is the main rebel group that lead the new offensive and which has already absorbed or eliminated many other groups in Syria.

They are a Sunni Islamist group, but they also are against Al-Queda. But only opposed to them since 2020. But HTS is still considered a terrorist organization by the US, UK, and Canada. But Timber Sycamore shows historically that the US may publicly designate a group as terrorists in Syria while style still supporting them privately. HTS is strongly opposed to Russia and has spilled a lot of blood to prove it.

So, in short, is this a good or bad event: I dunno.

unsuccessful unprofitable talentless hobbies associated with losers

Yeah Warhammer is pretty neat.

“31 is a Black Ops division.”

Jeez, I really can’t stand how the modern writers have made Section 31 an official arm of Starfleet. The entire point of the original idea was that it was a parasitic conspiracy hiding within the ranks, but not actually part of the ranks. Starfleet already has an intelligence agency for running covert operations, which is seemingly totally forgotten by modern writers.

The only time Section 31 has worked on screen after DS9 is when it appeared in Enterprise, because those writers understood how to handle an organization that existed as an under the table, in-the-know-only network.

Beyond that, I really, really, really can’t stand how Section 31 looks like it is getting the glorifying treatment. It is not supposed to be a cool, awesome entity. Section 31 was a dark, broken, and ultimately misguided element. It was something to be overcome and dismantled, not celebrated.

“You were great in Death Wish 3!”

Do you know where my Marina Sirtis action figure is

I lost it.

They sort of did.

“Spock’s Brain” has been memed as the worst episode ever, one of the ones we pretend doesn’t exist.

My hot take is that it’s not actually that bad. It’s not a top tier episode, but it’s perfectly serviceable. The worst actual thing in the episode is the sound effect used for the medical device to keep brainless Spock alive. I’ll grant that. Otherwise, the central conflict is average Trek stuff. The scene where McCoy gets an ancient medical database downloaded into his brain is actually really neat.

I am convinced the legacy of an especially bad reputation of this episode is because it appeared on a few “Worst Episode” lists because of the personal taste of the authors and very few people actually watch TOS for themselves, but instead absorb it through articles. So it just became accepted that the episode was outlandishly bad.

To stream original content, you must first create the universe.

I appreciate the 1985 movie Creature, which shamelessly rides the coattails of Alien. The special effects, while done on a budget, are surprisingly good. Many details are very similar to the 1986 Aliens, because the effects designers for Creature went on to be hired to work on Aliens.

You probably won’t understand entirely what is happening in the setting, but it’s not like you fully understood what was happening for most of Shadow Of Chernobyl.

You play as a brand new character with no relation to the past games in STALKER 2.

If you can pick up on implications and make informed guesses you can understand the world well enough. STALKER games have always succeeded with atmosphere and vibes rather than tight plot.

to get Stalker 2 into a decent place performance wise across PC and Xbox Series X and S

Consoles, and bugs stemming from optimizing for consoles.