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U.S.S. Aquila Briefing Room June 2010 by Stephanie Rechtin

It is likely that the Aquila will go up to the Dayton Celtic Festival on August 1st. Details for that trip will be finalized at the July 24th Aquila meeting which has been confirmed as being in the board room at the Covington library. August 28th has been confirmed for the next meeting date at the Covington Library. Since people had not finished Galileo’s Dream last month, it has been moved back indefinitely, though it will definitely be discussed at some point, and the plan for the official 1 PM book discussion this month is Keith DeCandido's novel Star Trek: The Next Generation: Q and A. The business meeting will include discussion of the possible August 1st trip to the Dayton Celtic Festival, as well as an attempt to discuss and vote on the new proposed newsletter policy, emailed separately to Aquila members. If attendance at tomorrow’s meeting is not high enough to vote on the policy, possible plans include requesting a vote by email, but please make every effort to attend.

Reflections on Millenicon by Stephanie Rechtin

This year at Millenicon, in addition to the official Aquila panel, I also participated on the “Babylon 5 The Place Where No Shadows Fall” panel and “The Physics of Magic” panel.

The Babylon 5 panel was very fun, though due to my own scarcity of preparation, the only real thing I contributed was my vote as to which episode most exemplified the theme of the panel to me and why. My choice was the episode with Lorien where Sheridan is suspended between life and death, because Sheridan in a sense is resurrected and everyone’s attitude towards him, including his own, shifts as a result of the experience.

“The Physics of Magic” was a discussion of the ways in which magic is presented in different fantasies' structured worlds, its costs, benefits, and limitations. Basically magic has to have some limitations in story, or there is no story. Limitations include sources and amounts of magic, need for study or equipment, and the emotional, cognitive, and physical limitations of the mage. These can be endlessly manipulated, but the believability of the story world essentially depends on the reader’s understanding of the way such limitations would work in the “real world” and how much these may be changed for story purposes.

In addition, I found the panel on cognition interesting because it presented different scientific reasons that information processing differences in individual brains leads to different personality styles, and the panel on social interaction interesting because they presented information in the way that I needed it as a person with my disability, and it was so generally well attended.

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs: Some Comments
by Stephanie Rechtin

Recently we read Moon Called by Patricia Briggs in our book discussion group. I did not mind reading it once, but was honestly disappointed in the story, both because I found the background story world building more interesting than the plot, and because I found the main romantic relationship developed in the story unbelievable. The story is a murder mystery set in an alternate modern world where vampires, werewolves, and fae are the main supernatural creatures, though smaller groups of others exist as well as magic users.

The main character is Mercedes Thompson, or Mercy, who is a Volkswagon mechanic and a skinwalker, a descendant with the native American ability to shift painlessly and at will into a coyote, who was raised between normal humans and a wolf pack. A teenage boy asks for and receives work in her shop, and is then killed. He is a young werewolf, which brings in the werewolf pack leader living next to Mercy, Adam.

Mercy’s position as a coyote makes her an outsider to the werewolf, fae, and vampire clans she encounters throughout her adventure, though her friends connect her to each. This gives her a unique perspective to comment on them, which I found the most interesting part of the book. The main background situation is whether, when, and how much each supernatural community should reveal itself to the general population, and how this should be handled. Each community has at least two opposing sides on this issue, and possibly more.

I found the relationship between Mercy and Adam unbelievable because I found it developed too swiftly, from Mercy continually insisting that Adam has no say in her life because she is not a wolf, to dating him. It is possible that some of her statements are meant as “the lady doth protest too much”. As I tend to take things literally, other readers may find this aspect more understandable and believable, and thus the rest if the book. My advice? Pick it up once at the library and decide for yourself.

The Galileo Project: A Beginning and a Review by Diane Joy Baker

Kim Stanley Robinson's giant tome on Galileo, mixing it up with Jovian future-folk, is the spark which lit this series. Though TE's main purpose is all things science fictional, on occasion, it should focus on science. We plan several informative pieces and dialogues concerning this towering figure over the next few issues of TE. These will involve Galileo's life, his faith, the famous Church trial, and various perspectives on it from Catholic, Protestant and agnostic viewpoints. I admit to much ignorance concerning the lives and minds of great scientists, and we hope that in future, shorter pieces on other scientists might be possible. Galileo's shadow looms large, so Galileo is a good place to begin.

Kim Stanley Robinson. Galileo's Dream by Diane Joy Baker

I get suspicious when modern authors dig up an historical character to serve a most modern plot. I wonder whether that form of archaeology uses the figure for an authorial mouthpiece, and at the same time, distorts the reader's sensibilities about the past, assuming they even have any. It wrenches the figure out of time, where they lived like fish, comfortable and real, making them fish out of water, gasping, and bug-eyed. Who knows how well they could adjust to the knowledge they gain as a result of their fictional adventures? Thus, a real historical character becomes fictional. Truth becomes malleable.

At the same time, I am suspicious of the "it was only a dream" formula in books. Its one reason I only liked (rather than loved) Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz. Such dream accounts are a clever framing device, but to my mind, it's merely a device, artificial, outside the real task of crafting a story. Fiction should actually happen to characters, else there's little real threat or conflict. Dreams reduce the sense of danger. While they may be interesting, or might even provide some insight into character, on some level, they are emotionally unsatisfying. They are what they are: mind games.

Hence, going in, this book had two strikes against it. Nonetheless, though I can't say KSR won me over by the end, he did keep me reading. Partly, it was for the historical sections, watching Galileo make discoveries, pay bills, garden, and write to his daughters. I wanted to know what this man was like, and right now, since I'm so ignorant of facts, I have to suspend my judgment on whether KSR succeeded in giving us Galileo. I have to trust that mostly, he did painstaking research, and presented it truthfully. It would do him little good to actually lie, but in fiction, it is possible to bend things a bit, and make significant events less or more significant as one might wish, to serve the story. On this point, the jury is still out. However, one aspect makes this serve KSR's point: if we do live in manifolds, with infinite changes in time, anything is possible. If infinite universes are true, there is one where Galileo burned, one where he was made Pope, and one where he was never born. All things might be true. Even this tale! KSR feels free to use Galileo, because that use is part of the point.

The SF sections, the interactions with the Jovians, Aurora's tutorials, and the like, are much like reading Arthur C. Clarke, who hauls the reader (and the observing character) around to his Great Artifact, while a lecturer explains all about it. Characters are thin, flat, for the real "character" in a Clarke story is not the person, but the Artifact, or the Idea. So it is with KSR. If you like Clarke, and if you like history, you'll like this book---but until I know more, I can't say I trust it.

The History of the U.S.S Aquila Continued by Rob Langenderfer

In June the Aquila began to meet regularly at Boone County Public Library in Florence. Cindy’s command style was less formal than Joy’s and much more relaxed and laid back. I hosted my first party for the ship that month even though the weather was quite uncooperative. I sought to bring together members from the Aquila and The Friends of the Time Lord, the Dr. Who group in which I had been a regular member for two and a half years and through whom I had originally gotten information about the Polaris and through their newsletter editor at the time, Renee Alper, found out about the Aquila two years before. Linda, Tammy and Brian Widener were able to attend as well as F.O.T.L. president Joe Link as well as Tom Kelly (who, at the time, was Chancellor of Communications of F.O.T.L. but would move up to the Vice-Presidency the next year and then have six years as the group’s president after that) and her room-mate Anna Kelley. Anna in particular (as well as her husband Wayne) would maintain ties to Aquila members (particularly myself, Linda Widener and Glenna Juilfs) for many years thereafter. In spite of the terrible weather, which had kept many people, including Glenna Juilfs and Tammy Borchardt from attending, those who were able to make it had an excellent time.

Fourteen Aquila members attended Paramount’s King’s Island on June 6th that had special Star Trek content at the time. Terrie stepped down as newsletter editor during the summer, but in early August Glenna assumed the post and would remain as the club newsletter editor until she moved to Texas eight years later. In August there was a fun gathering of members of many different clubs, including the Aquila and the Polaris, at the planetarium --where we got to see an interesting space-related program on their big special screen. Anna and Wayne Kelley were also there. Sixteen members of the U.S.S. Aquila attended the club picnic at Indian Lake Wilderness Preserve in September, including Cindy Paugh, Glenna Juilfs, Erin and Jessie and Dustyn Pence, Janet Burgoon, Pam, Nikkie, and Crissie Paynter, Stephen Pence, Billie Jo Rutledge, Carson, Linda, Tina, and Brian Widener and Rob Langenderfer.

I remember this event particularly well as it was the first time I met Linda’s husband Carson, and it was the first major lengthy outdoor event with the Aquila that I had attended. The sense of family among the club was never more evident. Earlier that month I had attended my first Engineering Blueprints meeting at Cindy’s house, and ten Aquilans (although not me, who had other plans that night, seeing Kenneth Branaugh’s Much Ado About Nothing with Joe Link) saw the special Star Trek festival later that night at the Emery Theatre.

Late that month five long-time members of the ship left the group to help form a correspondence ship with one other long-time member joining them in the not-too-distant future. However, that was not able to darken the mood on the ship as the club had its commissioning party in October with Cindy Paugh, Glenna Juilfs, Erin Pence, Leonard and Shirley Robinson, Greg and Vanessa Turner, Tammy, Shawn and Heather Borchardt, Alan Wright, Linda, Carson, Tammy and Brian Widener in attendance. They partied from 9 P.M. until 3:30 A.M.! If I had not been at my uncle’s wedding, I would have been there!

Although this may say seem somewhat personal and arbitrary, I can’t neglect to mention when reviewing these particular months all of the help that I received from Linda, Tammy, and Tina Widener in helping me to construct my Cyberman costume for Visions ’93 in Chicago (the big 30th anniversary convention in honor of Dr. Who). Although Anna and Wayne Kelley and Tom Kelly and Anne Cox-Espenlaub and Erb Hansel from the Dr. Who club also helped vitally in the process and should not be forgotten, the help of the Wideners at their house, my house and going with me to stores late at night and even working on aspects of the costume when I was practically asleep was particularly invaluable and is representative of many acts of the Aquila that have not been mentioned in this ship’s history. (My costume was finished, and I did wear it in the Visions Costume Contest and received an honorable mention and later wore it at other events.)

In November of 1993 Carson Widener took over as Treasurer for the ship. Later that month several members of the crew (including at least Glenna and Cindy) journeyed to Starbase Indy to see Renee Auberjonois (Odo) where they witnessed Polaris Security Chief Bev Hater try to show her good friend IKV Doomslayer Captain Joe Manning something, causing him to slip and then Bev, who was only semi-conscious at the time, dragged him across the floor, giving him a bad case of rug burn! Although Bev denied it, there were witnesses who saw her sitting in Joe’s lap later during the convention! (If you know Bev, that was a truly unusual and newsworthy occurrence!)

In January, 15 crew members participated in an Engineering Blueprints development party at Cindy and Ken’s. The activities committee also had a meeting there where they tossed around ideas for future events (some of which are still being discussed today). Another engineering party was held in March at the Paugh’s. In April Ken Paugh was voted Officer of the Year for 1993. In April a large number of Aquilans journeyed to New Philadelphia, OH for the Dover Peace Conference including Cindy, Greg and Glenna (with Glenna fighting to protect her Romulan ears from several Klingons, including Greg!).

In the legendary Hatergate trial, Bev was placed on trial for what had happened at Starbase Indy with Joe Manning’s rug burn. After Bev was freed when actor Robert O’Reilly (who played Gow’Ron, leader of the Klingon high council on ST:TNG and ST:DS9) made a phone call to Joe leaving the decision up to Joe’s judgment, Joe himself was placed on trial by a Klingon admiral for letting her go free, and Cindy and Bev among others were called to testify, Bev claiming that she couldn’t remember anything! It was eventually decided that the disputes would be resolved by whether Klingons or Starfleet groups could collect the most food for their local food banks. Such were the fun and funny happenings that could occur at conventions. In May Cindy stepped down as CO, with Greg moving up to CO, Glenna to XO, and Linda Widener to 2nd Officer. On May 31, 1994 the Paughs hosted a ST:TNG finale watching party at their house. It was quite a good time, particularly as the last season of the show had declined in quality over the previous ones, but they definitely delivered the goods in the finale “All Good Things…”

USS Aquila NCC 42297
"The Wings of Tomorrow"