The BLAND Corporation

Author note : I've changed the text slightly from that seen at WaD because I spotted a rather embarrassing inconsistency. Oops. Oh well. That's what revisions are for. “What is it like to be a bat?” She lifts her gaze from the microscope eyepiece. “Sorry?” “It’s a philosophical conundrum,” Ballard says. “Bit of a trick question. If you can express it, then it’s not what a bat is like, because bats don’t have the capacity for language. Or so that philosopher thought.” “Yes, well. What is it like to be a self-replicating space crystal,” she says, and resumes her examination of a tissue sample from the alien sea urchin shaped creature. “I’m working towards establishing that too, Ms Evans.” He pauses, marker in hand, in front of an improvised whiteboard on the wall covered in scribbles. “Theory guides practice.” Sea urchin cells frozen- or rather vitrified- stand before her eyes, illuminated in the microscope backlight. Practice can guide itself, thank you very

"This is of course merely a hypothesis, but ... let's observe two things. One, all of the corpses inside NECA are intact, whereas our colleague Hendrix was found in pieces. Two, despite our persistent tresspassing, the NECAns have yet to make an appearance." Ballard pauses for dramatic effect. Bit of an inappropriate time for didactic showmanship, but the pause contains a hint of the direction his idea goes in. "Unless, of course, we have met the NECAns already," he says. "The crystals." She scoffs. "Now whose ideas are fanciful." "Granted, it's a strange thought, but let's consider it. You have noticed how the crystals are rather odd in what they choose to grow on. They are at once very adaptable, but also rather discerning." "That doesn't make them intelligent." "No, just strange. NECA itself is strange. Look around, does any of this seem to have been designed with something we'd recogniz

"Then lets begin," she says as she opens a sturdy cryogenic container with Hendrix' suit inside. A fog of frost lingers for a moment around its plastic surface. A few paces beside her, Gubarev watches intently, his sullen expression easy to make out through the visor of his hazmat gear. "Cold stops the things, you say." "You were the one guarding here," she answers. "Did you see anything suspicious?" A rhetorical question, as the  logistics module is free of any crystalline invasion. She resumes her examination of the spacesuit, folding, stretching, exposing the various areas. "Nothing appears to have stuck to the urethane-nylon." "So what are we looking for?" "To see how the crystals snuck in. They seem to favor metallic parts, and I'm going to need you to dismantle the- yes, you will dismantle this." "I ain't touching that." "You know how these things work much better than I d

A short while after I saw Prometheus, I also saw (I think on Phil Plait's recommendation over at Bad Astronomy) a trailer for Europa Report . Brief, minimalistic, but I just knew then, that this little film would be 2013's Prometheus for me: a film I will absolutely like, despite its faults. Well, I finally got to watch Europa Report. Did my impression, based on the trailer, turn out accurate?

Well, for some value of "works". Some context: as you'd know if you follow this, I'm writing this supposedly hard SF story called "Rendezvous with NECA" for a writing course. Got some critiques, useful ones too, and this is not about them. Even the review I'll answer now I won't answer because I want to comment on their writerly points (which are useful). No, what moved me to comment is this: Btw, this is a minor point, if this whole thing is supposed to play out in the near future, I would consider replacing the fusion drive with something more conventional. It doesn’t look like fusion will be come a viable source of energy in the foreseeable future, and even if, current fusion reactor concepts are huge, heavy and simultaneously complicated and frail – not something that can easily be shot into space. And with an unholy amount of conventional boosters (bought with unholy amounts of money), it is conceivable that a manned spaceship could