Talon's Edge June 2011

TALON’S EDGE is the chapter newsletter of the (USS) Aquila NCC 42297, a non-profit fan organization based in Florence , Kentucky . All rights and privileges to the terms STAR TREK and all images / references to same are exclusively owned by Paramount Pictures Corp. Likewise, all rights & privileges to the terms and all images & references to STAR WARS (Lucas Film), Dr.Who (BBC), or other programs not specifically named, are exclusively owned by those companies. This newsletter is not intended to infringe on any copyrights or legal holdings of the writers, producers, Production Company, or others with claims to the programs / images, nor to make profit from them.

If you have book reviews, movie/series reviews, or other stuff you want to post but don't want to put it in the newsletter, there is now a blog page where you can post it (yourself).
https://ussaquila.angelfire.com/blog/

Upcoming Events

Captain’s Column
By Rob Langenderfer

I am writing this message in the middle of June of 2011, feeling both sadness and hope, having served as the Captain of the U.S.S. Aquila for more than six years and having been an active member in the group for more than 18 years. I have come to the conclusion that some things relating to the club need to change at this point in time. When I joined the club 18 years ago, we used to get 25-30 people per meeting. Even five years after that, we would still get 18-20 people at our meetings. Now we are lucky if we get five people at a meeting. Science fiction fandom as a whole has changed tremendously in the last 15-20 years. Fifteen years ago Star Trek was a tremendous force, The X-Files was becoming popular, Babylon 5 was coming into its own, people waited with eager anticipation for George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels. Now Star Trek only has a movie and although Dr. Who is stronger than ever in terms of its popularity, SF fandom in general seems to be shrinking. Many young fans do not see the value in gathering together in person as fans when they can talk about their favorite shows in real time through chatting on the Internet. Well, online chatting is fun, but it is not the same as getting together in person. To demonstrate this to younger fans and to keep our club strong and vibrant, I feel that now is a good time to consider changing the format of some things about the club. The business meetings are only attracting four people per month, and they are getting boring. Perhaps a greater variety of club programming, and we might only have a business meeting every 3 months or so, but instead we could do more frequent video parties, board game days, role-playing game events, trips to local museums and parks of interest to members…any other ideas that people might have that would re-energize members who are still active in the group and attract new people to join the group. These are the sorts of things that I would like to see us brainstorm on at our meeting on Sunday, June 26th at the main library in Cincinnati at 800 Vine St. at 2 P.M. Bring your ideas. Everything is on the table.

Marcon review
by Stephanie Rechtin

This year’s theme was alternate history, in several different ways. The first, and most obvious of these was that there were several good panels on writing, reading, and using alternate history

I went to one panel on how to create a good alternate history. The main suggestions I got are to first use turning points in real history, secondly stay close to fact, define each change you want to make and follow through with all the logical consequences. This can be used in science fiction as well as straight historical fiction, for example creating plausible planetary environments for a space-faring culture’s colonies.

Another panel was about using alternate history to teach real history. Alternate histories be a way to engage students who are not otherwise interested or to illuminate why certain historical decisions were made by giving events from one perspective, and can keep history classes from being one generalized voice, but there are some concerns. Make sure students understand the difference between eliminate confusion between primary, secondary, and fictional sources, and use and cite them correctly. Discuss bias in history, including both primary and secondary sources, including how to recognize and account for or refute it. Assign short works with plenty of discussion time to clarify confusion on these points, and be careful of the fact that some students will over-identify with certain characters or positions because of personal history.

I had fun this year, but a recurring theme was that the actual panel topic was an alternative to what I had expected. This was a result of a combination of factors. One panel description was accurate, but misleading. Some panels drifted off topic or abandoned topic because they were small and all the participants and presenters wanted to do so, others because the panelists hadn’t been given full information or hadn’t read the description, and a few because panelists seemed to have been assigned randomly or only with reference to the panel title, rather than the description.

The misleading panel was is that one of the most interesting panels in print was Friday’s panel on levitation based on the chapter “Making the Jump to Lightspeed” in a National Geographic book. The presentation was based on that chapter, but it turned out to be presentation on how to convert ideas found in science fiction to testable scientific hypotheses described by the mathematical equations of physics, using levitation as an example, rather than a discussion of the current state of the art in experimentation in actual levitation. This is an interesting idea and some people are using it to try to develop things like levitation or FTL spacedrives, but not what I was hoping to hear. Unfortunately, his further panels that may have delved into the subject conflicted with other things I wanted to see.

The description of the Women in Modern SF panel asked the question of why female characters in science fiction haven’t made it into engineering much, but turned out to be a listing of ‘strong female characters’ in science fiction historically and recently, touching on the development of the most prevalent current options, with explorations of why the stereotypes have developed that way, but with no exploration of why there aren’t women engineers. This was a collective drifting on the part of the participants in the room. The consensus seemed to be that the Lara Croft type character was strong and adventurous in ways current females admire, but with the sex appeal and possibility for heavy action scenes that draw teenage boys. Other types of female characters who are emotionally strong, more conventionally in the female role, and/or a strong link in a family chain are rarer, partially because it is more complex to portray characters like that, partially because those types of situations do not lead to a single hero or heroine to focus the story around, and partially because that kind of strength is less obvious. Delenn from Babylon 5 is proof that it can be done well, however.

I’m not sure if the Alternative Families panelists read the description, or were randomly assigned. One of the panelists was a writer, who made several good points about why alternative families show up less often in science fiction than you would expect, supported by the other panelist. The second panelist, however, had no particular book or media background, and was placed on the panel possibly because he is a member of an alternative arrangement himself. This was useful, but not to the point. The panelists discussed the need to make readers feel comfortable with the story, general societal morals disapproving of the concept, the small likelihood of a publisher accepting a manuscript featuring such concepts, and the general plot irrelevance of background things like family structure as possible reasons why writers avoid alternative families in stories. Bottom line, if we want to see more of them, we have to find and buy those that are out there to convince the market to increase supply. Some of the same considerations explain why there are not more examples of alien sexuality that are truly “alien”, and again, if we want to see more, we as readers need to speak with our wallets.

The “Can they just stay dead, please?” panelists seemed to be chosen by panel title, because one of the panelists makes zombie movies, when the panel was about the overuse of bringing characters back to life as a plot device. We threw out examples and agreed that it is ridiculously overused, often for profit reasons. We also discussed our favorite horror/zombie movies, and ended up with overuse of bringing back dead or possibly dead characters in zombie movies, which was just funny!

Next were the funny or fun panels in which I don’t know if anyone else is interested in my choice of program among the alternatives, but I list for completeness. For Firefly lovers, I went to “Joss Whedon Blasphemy” where we got to admit to all of the things about his shows and public persona that we hated. My vote was the shift in the crew’s relationship to the Tams between the last episode of the show and the beginning of the Serenity movie. The Harry Potter end of an era panel was a toast to what we liked best, in contrast. I last mention a panel on paranormal romance, where I got a number of interesting recommendations that I can’t remember, which is still better than the fact that I read some panels were in the Imaginary category in the program, but still tried to find them!

Millennicon Review
By Rob Langenderfer

Millennicon in 2011 was less of a tumultuous affair than in some past years, but it still provided many fun moments and good times with considerably less stress. The panels that I was on were interesting, particularly the panel dealing with the question of whether the Doctor could be female. Stephanie spearheaded a very good discussion of Orson Scott Card’s Ender books in one of the two official U.S.S. Aquila panels while Kaza Kingsley was always entertaining as she led the discussion on her Erec Rex series of books and talked about the writing process. I found The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century co-edited by Harry Turtledove in the dealer’s room that I got him to autograph at Marcon. Later on I found a Civil War card game that my nephew and I tried to play together, but we found that it was a bit more complex than either of us liked for when were attempting to learn it! In terms of fannish activity, it was a bit different from years past as no one was there representing the U.S.S. Yorktown, and the Polaris and Camelot had long been absent, and there was no official Friends of the Time Lord presence at the convention although Rhonda Scarborough and Mary Anne Schultz showed up on Saturday night. The League of Cincinnati Steampunks was out in force, however, showing that new fandoms could still attract people. The older clubs were still alive as Friends of the Time Lord planned to start meeting again and personal commitments had kept the Yorktown and Midnight Warrior away in 2011 but they might return in 2012.

U.S.S. Aquila: The Last 10 Years, 2000-2010, Years of Change and Renewal
By Rob Langenderfer
November 20, 2010

The year of 2001 was the 10th anniversary of the Dover Peace Conference, and several work parties were held at Tammy Borchardt’s house to prepare various things that the Aquila was doing there. Glenna, Erin, Tammy B., Mark Bradford, Cyndi, Becky, Sam and Nelson were at Dover that year from the regular Aquila crew as well as several friends of the ship, and everyone had a good time, putting on a skit and eating chocolate galore. Several Aquila members attended the Star Trek: Voyager series finale watching party coordinated by the U.S.S. Camelot. Tammy Borchardt was promoted to Captain, and Tammy Widener was promoted to Lt. Cmdr in June. It was also decided that month that no one could rise higher than the rank of Captain unless they had served as CO of the ship. At the end of July, the Aquila received the news that its CO and Activities Committee chair and the driving force behind so many Aquila events over the last 10 years, Glenna Juilfs, was moving to Texas with her son, Cadet Corps Commander Erin Pence. The crew gathered for a final time at Tammy Borchardt’s house to see Glenna and Erin off. It was a very nice party in which many good memories were recalled and much fun and fellowship were had by the many who attended.

However, with Glenna and Erin gone, the other members of their family, such as Lynda and her daughters, Janet and her sons and various others stopped coming to meetings. The ship was irrevocably changed. Still, the members soldiered on. In August, Sam Hearld was voted the ship’s CO, Linda not wishing to move up from her position as 1st officer. Tammy Borchardt was confirmed as 2nd officer and Rob Langenderfer was elected 3rd officer. Diane Baker volunteered to become the new newsletter editor. In September, Aimee Weber hosted a party when the premiere of Enterprise, the 5th Star Trek series, aired. It was also during that month that a very large contingent of Aquila members traveled in a van up to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. The U.S.S. Aquila voted Tammy Borchardt Officer of the Year for 2001, but 2001 would be her last year actively in the club, and in April of 2002 she formally resigned the 2nd Officer position. (I was then elected 2nd Officer, and the position of 3rd Officer was dropped.) In March of 2002, the club answered phones at WCET, and later that month the group served as panelists at Millennicon, comparing the Harry Potter books and the Chronicles of Narnia books and also leading a panel on tolerance in Star Trek. Aimee Weber attended a day focused on Mars in July at the Covington library where Mike Resnick, David High, and Lyle Kelly were the featured speakers while Diane attended the Renaissance Festival again after having attended Midwest Con in June. Rob hosted a club video party in November, and in December Nelson and Rob attended a recruiting drive for the opening of Star Trek: Nemesis along with members of the U.S.S. Melbourne. In March of 2003 the Aquila did panels at Millennicon on the timelessness of Tolkien and African-Americans in SF. In April Rob arranged for journalist Kevin Pettite to come to speak to the Aquila about his experiences meeting astronauts and covering the space program. Sam hosted a video party at his place in Butler in May that many club members attended, and Diane was on 5 panels at Marcon. Her panels included ones on “Alien Protagonists”, “Resurrected Heroes”, writing and research and “What You Should Have Read”. Diane attended MythCon later that year.

Rob, Linda and Diane attended and were panelists at Third Rock that August (organized by the U.S.S. Camelot), leading a discussion on “Why We Miss Babylon 5”. Rob hosted a video party for the 40th anniversary of Dr. Who in November at which other SF programs were also shown. In March of 2004 the Aquila did panels on Apocalyptic SF and the State of Star Trek at Millennicon. In April the SF book discussion group began with War of the Worlds being the first book discussed at the Indepedence, KY library. Although the book discussion group was separate from the Aquila (like the Star Hawk) enough members attended its gatherings that substantial coverage of it here seems justified. All of the books discussed in the group, which has continued to this day (although no longer officially sponsored by the library as was once the case) will be listed in an appendix. Moreover, the book discussion group provided a real outlet for the members’ energies that had not been present since Glenna Juilfs and Tammy Borchardt had been active in the group and had involved people in so many different things. In April, the Aquila also agreed to the formation of an editorial board to resolve any problems that may come up related to the newsletter. In May Diane served on five panels at Marcon, including “Is God a Fan?”, “Mordor and Morden: Similar Elements in B5 and Lord of the Rings”, “The Matrix: Classic or Cliché?” , led a Christian Fandom meeting and portrayed Willow in “Once More with Feeling”, the Buffy sing-along. In June Stephanie Rechtin attended her first meeting of the group which was a combined book discussion of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game as well as a meeting that was held at Independence library and then at Aimee Weber’s house when the library closed. In July several Aquila members attended an event at the Covington library that featured Joe and Gay Haldeman and Mike Resnick. Diane again attended Mythcon that featured Neil Gaiman as the Guest of Honor. In October the U.S.S. Aquila held a joint picnic with the U.S.S. Melbourne. In November we had the last book discussion that was officially sponsored by the library. The book group still continued to meet. At Millennicon in 2005 the group led panel discussions on “The Universe of Star Wars” and “Humans, Beasts and Telepathy.” In late April Sam decided to step down as CO largely because of family considerations. On May 1, 2005, following a nomination to the position by 1st Officer Linda Widedner, Rob Langenderfer was elected as CO on an interim basis. (In August he would be elected CO on a permanent basis, as per the 2 year election rule then in effect.) Stephanie was also appointed Recruiting Officer at the meeting. Later in May the crew gathered to watch the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise at the home of Stephanie Rechtin. At this point, for the first time in almost 18 years there was no new Star Trek series on TV, and there began to be a search to try to find a new focus for the club as even after the Aquila became a general SF club, Star Trek had always rated highly in terms of what it was built around.

In September Brett Strittmatter joined the club as its Science Chief. At the club’s 15th anniversary party that Stephanie hosted at her house in December, club members had such a good time playing different games that people began to feel that the club had to move beyond Barnes and Nobles where it had met for the last 10 years so that the group could do more things like play games and watch videos on a regular basis.

Stephanie indicated her willingness to host club meetings at her house on a regular basis, and after January (and exactly 10 years of meetings at Barnes and Nobles), the club began to meet at the Rechtin home in Ft. Wright, KY. Although games did not end up being played every month, it was a change from the bookstore. In April Rob and Stephanie and Diane heard SF author David Drake speak at the Covington library. Also in April the club was given a complete set of off-air recordings of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Babylon 5, Crusade and the V miniseries by a family who were clearing out some of their video library. Stephanie agreed to house the videos at her apartment. They formed the backbone of a club video library which grew through the years. Glenna and Erin came back to town for a visit at the end of April, and Linda and Stephanie and myself were able to see them at her daughter Lynda’s house along with many other of her relatives. It was truly wonderful to see them. Diane served on a panel about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine at Marcon and also served on a panel comparing Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and on one comparing Star Trek and Star Wars. In August, Linda, Velma (Linda’s sister), Stephanie, Brett, Rob and Art Lauer and Chris Wright journeyed up to the Star Wars exhibit that was held in Columbus at the COSI museum. The different things present in the exhibit were truly fascinating, and after that Brett and Rob went to a cookout celebrating the 20th anniversary of the U.S.S. Columbus. In March of 2007 a group from the U.S.S. Aquila went over to the Cincinnati Obervatory. Later that month club members did panels at Millennicon on Magical Systems in SF and on Heroes and other SF TV shows. In April Gary Pierce (who also belonged to Starbase Karma came to his first U.S.S. Aquila meeting. In May, Rob, Brett, Stephanie and Diane attended Marcon. Diane participated in The State vs. Severus Snape, dressed up as Snape! She was also in two versions of Eight Deadly Words (“I don’t care what happens to these people!”) about how the lack of good characters can doom both literary and media SF.

Longtime Aquila member Captain Leonard Robinson died in June after complications from a stroke. Leonard had been a very active member of the group in the mid 1990s, being interested in science and history. He had created a fantasy world that only he had understood the intricacies of that could often be baffling to other people when he tried to explain it and when he made reference to it in speaking (as he often did). However, that was one of his charms, and the crew is less for his warmth and humor. Several Aquila crew members attended his funeral. The July issue of the newsletter was dedicated to him and it contained several Leonard Robinson tribute articles written by Glenna, Diane and Rob. A copy of it was sent to his wife Shirley who moved to West Virginia after his death.

In July Stephanie, Rob, Linda, Tina, and Greg attended the release party for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Borders. In August we had our last regular meeting at Stephanie’s Ft. Wright residence as she was moving to an apartment in Newport. In October the group began meeting at Barnes and Nobles at Newport on the Levee. In February of 2008 Rob, Diane, Stephanie and Lily and Sarah Light attended Itsnotacon in Columbus. Dave Woodard organized the convention, and Joe Manning came down for the convention. It was the last time I saw Joe before he died in March of 2010 (although we chatted on Facebook the month that he died), but we had a good time remembering Dovers and the different Star Trek clubs and people that we had known.

In February we also had a planning meeting for Millennicon at Aimee’s where we watched 2001 and 2010 and a show about the making of 2001. At Millennicon a good number of Aquila members were on a panel about 2001 and 2010 and on one titled “Harry Potter and the Seven Magic Books.” In April Stephanie and Rob met Kaza Kingsley, a local author at a meeting of the American Hobbit Society and in June Kingsley came to our book discussion of her book Erec Rex: The Dragon’s Eye and shared fun tidbits of what was coming up in the series. In August Kingsley joined us for a discussion of her second book Erec Rex: The Monsters of Otherness. Stephanie hosted a Heroes marathon in September at her Newport apartment in which members of Starbase Karma joined a number of Aquilans. In January of 2009 Stephanie was elected 2nd Officer of the club. In March of 2009 the U.S.S. Aquila once again had several panels at Millennicon. This year the group tackled Isaac Asimov’s Robot books, Frank Herbert’s Dune books and films and the novels of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs which featured a world in the center of the earth. In April the group voted to change its meeting location to the Kenton County Public Library in Covington. The Barnes and Nobles at Newport on the Levee, though a nice bookstore, was very noisy, had small tables that were a strain to fit many people around and there was hardly an inexpensive place nearby for members to eat after a meeting should they wish to do so, and a year and a half there had not netted any regular new members. In May, the new film, titled simply Star Trek, starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk and Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy playing different versions of Spock, came out to theaters. The atmosphere for the release of the film was truly electric, unlike anything since Star Trek: First Contact from 1996 among Trek films. The Aquila had a recruiting drive at the Florence cinema, with Linda, Rob, Brett, Stephanie, Gary, and Vanessa participating. Everyone was very excited about the film and really liked it. Many flyers were passed out, but unfortunately it did not lead to any new club members. In August and September the club had a number of events. In August a good number of members went to the Cincinnati Museum Center on a free day to see the exhibits there. Later in Auugst Kaza Kingsley discussed Erec Rex: The Search for Truth with the group. The group also approved the ship’s policy manual that month, with the group mission statement and club spirit statement having been previously ratified in April. In September, Brett, Rob and Stephanie went up to Spaceballs where they socialized with members of the U.S.S. Camelot and other SF clubs, and Stephanie received a certificate for Longest Drive because she was the person who took the longest to finish the course! In January of 2010 Glenna Juilfs became the club co-web master and added a great deal of new material to the club web site. During that month the club election procedures were revised to include yearly votes of confidence for the command staff with elections whenever a command staff member wants to step down. In February author Christopher Bennett joined the group for its discussion of his novel Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Buried Age. The club participated in one official club panel at Millennicon on the new Star Trek film in March and different members were on other panels at the convention, all of which went well. At the end of March and in April policy guidelines for newsletter articles and the powers of the newsletter editor were drafted and approved by the command staff and the newsletter editor. In June several Aquila members journeyed to the Kentucky Renaissance Festival.

The group was now much smaller than it had been nine or even seven years earlier, with meeting attendance of five being considered very respectable. However, the group persevered. It has outlasted many other Star Trek and SF groups. It has continued to try to renew itself. In the face of the end of the Star Trek TV series, a world without a Star Trek movie for six years, a world without a meaningful Star Wars film after 2005, the club has sought to live out the virtues personified by Star Trek. In November Linda Widener (still the club 1st officer after 12 years), Stephanie Rechtin, Rob Langenderfer and friends of the club Mike Schmitz, Karen Baumgartner, and Noah Baumgartner all went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One for the club’s 20th anniversary, and they went out to eat afterwards, being joined by Gary Pierce. Plans were discussed for the future such as a role-playing game session and other books that might be discussed in book discussions. The club may have been smaller than in years past, but its hopeful spirit continued to live on, ready to blaze a path of light through the galaxy.

Aquila Officers	2
Unclassifieds	2
Event Calendar	2
Area Meetings	3
Captain's Column (RL)	3-4
Marcon Review (SR)	4-6
Millennicon Review (RL)	6
Club History – Last Ten Years (RL)	6-11
Mission Page	11

U.S.S Aquila Officers
COMMANDING OFFICER/NEWSLETTER EXCHANGE LIAISON/SHIP’S HISTORIAN Rob Langenderfer 859-371-9798 rlangenderfer@yahoo.com uss.aquila1@juno.com	LIAISON TO STARBASE KARMA/SECURITY CHIEF Gary Pierce 513-497-5069
EXECUTIVE OFFICER / MEDICAL CHIEF/ Linda Widener 859-283-9799 LWIDENER0449@yahoo.com	MEDIA LIAISON Aimee Weber 859-356-5731 mermaid44715@yahoo.com
SECOND OFFICER/RECRUITING OFFICER/RECORDS OFFICER Stephanie Rechtin 859-261-4380 wreckedin@gmail.com	NEWSLETTER EDITOR/ OPERATIONS CHIEF/ Diane Joy Baker 513-521-6039 diane1@zoomtown.com
SCIENCE Officer / TREASURER/ Brett Strittmatter 513-646-7177 brett_strittmatter@yahoo.com	TRANSPORTER CHIEF Nelson Charette 859-630-6889 (cell) snelsonc@isoc.net
Web Wizards Rob Langenderfer and Glenna Juilfs rlangenderfer@yahoo.com karadione@hotmail.com	U.S.S. AQUILA WEB SITE: https://ussaquila.angelfire.com/ E-MAIL:mailto:uss.aquila@juno.com

USS Aquila(Independent): Jan. 8, 2011 1 PM Book Club Discussion: Q & A by Keith DeCandido 2 PM Meeting The Main Branch of Public Library in Cincinnati 800 Vine Street in Meeting Room 2A (2nd floor near Tech Center) Contact: Rob Langenderfer Website:	ILV Midnight Warrior(KAG Xenoleague): Fourth Tuesday at 7:30pm (except December) meetings held at members homes and changes monthly. Contact: Joel Nye Website
*USS Melbourne(SFC)* Meets every other month; the off month is a social function Second Sunday at 3:00pm; Place subject to change Contact: Miriam Lauer	USS Camelot(Independent): Third Friday at 7pm (except December) Dayton Museum of Natural History 2600 DeWeese Parkway, near Triangle Park Dayton, OH (exit 57B from I-75 N or S) Website
*Friends of the Time Lord* Third Sunday 2:30PM WCET Contact: Rhonda Scarborough	KAG = Klingon Assault Group SFC = Starfleet Command

June 2011

USS Aquila NCC 42297

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