#in my defence i get the impression the source material could end up being a HF/SI

[tentoxa]

oh i do so love having ~*IDEAS*~ for fandoms im not even apart of that are so grand theyd probably take me several years to complete AND knowing that i already like the idea so much that it’ll haunt me to not take a stab at it ://

[spooki-local-cryptid]

Since no-one else is saying it... War of The Worlds 2019

!SPOILERS!

If you haven't seen this, or any other version of War of the Worlds, this contains spoilers

The 2019 War of the Worlds TV series produced by the BBC had high standards. Real high. But it had a good cast, design seemed good, and it was set to be the most faithful of all adaptations. It wasn't. Apart from being set in Edwardian England, having tripods, (very) loosely following the main plot, and having the black smoke, it wasn't accurate.

Also it was a real bitch to find and watch. Dispite being done by the BBC, it never played on TV or the BBCi Player for whatever reason, so I had to pirate it :/ Even then, I had to go through a good 20 sites to find it. Why the hell is it so difficult to find 😫 So I'll have a whinge, here's some of the stuff they really fell short on.

Characters

Some key characters like the Artilleryman, the Vicar (or Priest, whatever, the church guy) and his wife were scrapped for characters you don't really get invested in. The Artilleryman was still there, but he didn't make his appearance at the end. The vicar and his wife either wasn't included at all, or just left 0 impression. The small group you're accompanying, I could not care about.

I don't care about Amy (even as well as she was acted) because you wasn't supposed to care about any characters. It was supposed to be one man's determination to survive to reunite with his wife. When that element of determination is gone and they're together, it doesn't really work. You're not supposed to care about the characters individually. You're supposed to be caring about humanity as a whole. The focus is not on the people, but the disaster they're living in.

I do love Ogilvy and the Artilleryman, though they still could have been developed more. (Artilleryman especially, they done him dirty 🙁)

Martians

Oh my dear Martians, what happened to you 😭 Rather than being the huge, crawling squid-like creatures they were in the book, now they're just big metal spiders (?) Who are able of climbing and jumping around just fine on earth, when they should not physically be able to lift themselves up (???) If they can jump around, why would they need their machines?

And also now they eat people despite not having a stomach (?) When I believe in the source material it was just their blood they were after.

But now talking about their machines, the pod that first arrived are... Strange. They're not hollow as they should be, but just a clump of flammable material. The Martians are underneath or something. The tripods are okay. Nothing special. As much as I hated the Tom Cruise version, they had much better tripods. The heat ray doesn't exist in this, they just throw flammable mud. WHY DOES NO-ONE EVER USE THE CRAB MACHINES hhhhh please!! Someone, give us Martian machines besides the tripods! Give us Crab Machines, give us the flying machines!!!

Also the Martians didn't make any noise really so that sucked ass. The "Uulah!" From the Musical and the Siren from the 2006 version were so well done and effective. You didn't have anything here and it was super disappointing :(

Story

Key scenes and moments were cut. The ThunderChild wasn't there at all :( The fight over the Themes didn't happen :(( No tripod over Big Ben :((( The Red Weed either wasn't mentioned or was barely covered, it crystal now for some reason :(((( Artilleryman didn't come back :(((((

They included the smoke though (which I don't think any of the others have yet) so :)

But like, the image of a Tripod looming over Big Ben after the sinking of England's last defence is such an iconic scene and it wasn't included. They really really missed their chance.

Also when they did start dying, the Martians were just on the ground. It didn't have half the impact it would of being on Deaths door, having a tripod looming over you, accepting your death only to find that it's dead. And the few behind it, they all are. It sucked tbh.

I was not a fan of the disjointed approach to the story. I don't get the point of the time jumps. It interrupted the flow of the story and apart from a few scenes that blended well, it just didn't work.

Music

It was okay. I didn't really pick up too much on it to be honest, but I was expecting more. Especially with the more known and recognised version of the story being a musical. Obviously I don't expect them to burst into song, but homage to this would have been nice. They did make a reference though with "like bows and arrows against the lightening" so something close. But that was the only reference I caught. Not even a reference to "the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one" which was a bummer considering how many good quotes the source has.

I ran out of things to talk about so I'll finish up. Overall it was, okay. I can't say more than that. Maybe I set my hopes too high, or maybe it really did fall so low, who knows. The actors were great, the effects were great, costume and set were great. But the Martians, direction and story were bad. They only barely stuck to the original plot, and moved completely away after where the ThunderChild scene should have been.

The Jeff Wayne version is still by far the superior and more accurate version of the story. Which is disappointing considering how hyped this version was but I guess it just highlights the qualities of the musical. It was one of the best sellers for a reason.

Overall it was good. Worth a check out if you like your Sci-Fi, Fiction, Drama, Period Drama or even Romance. But if you're a big fan of the franchise, it's nothing to get too excited over. I really wish it was though. It deserves a 7/10, although it could have been a 10/10 so easily if they just followed the formula properly

[bizarre-dollhouse]

Animation Direction and Aesthetic Appeal: Why I Didn’t Like Book of the Atlantic

For the record, if you really loved Book of the Atlantic and thought it looked great and/or are sick of people bitching about it, you probably won’t want to read this post.

If you didn’t like the movie, thought the movie looked terrible, are curious about how and why people don’t like it, or, most importantly, want to read about aesthetic techniques and how they relate to anime in general, please continue.

I want to really talk about animation, visual direction, and adaption techniques, and I want to use Kuroshitsuji: Book of the Atlantic as a negative example, because I soooo wanted to love this movie and ended up really disliking it.

For the most part, this post is just me getting something off of my chest, because I feel like there’s this grand misunderstanding held by people who didn’t like the movie about why the movie looked bad.

I just disagree with the consensus so strongly that I...I have to make a post about it. Because every review I’ve seen of this movie mentions how just the cgi is bad, or it just looks like they didn’t have enough money amiright? 

I just think it is so much more interesting complicated than that.

Lots of text under the cut.

I’ll just get the basics out of the way: the cgi does not look well integrated and some of the background faces are derpy.

Moving on.

Part 1: Something to keep in mind:

Anime movies tend to look better than weekly anime tv shows because they are given both more time and a higher budget. This is why so many people thought it was unfair that A Silent Voice was up for Best Animation in the Crunchy Roll awards.

This is kind of unimportant but I would like you to keep it in mind while reading the rest of this post.

Part 2: What does good animation even mean?

I’ve heard a defence for the movie’s lacklustre animation is that it looks like all of the money went towards the fight scenes, or that the fight scenes make up for everything.

I’ve seen the fight scene between Sebastian, the reapers, and Undertaker a few times and I’ll admit, there are a few nice cuts early on with some very dynamic dodges and attacks, but after that it’s a lot of easier techniques, like held poses, slow motion falls, cut aways, frame movement, etc. The fight scene as a whole I would (personally) consider to be pretty “meh.”

This might sound kind of harsh, but even if you totally disagree with me and think the fight scene looked great, that just means it looks nice.

That fight scene is not especially well animated. 

What takes up the most time and money in animation is the amount and detail of movement (key animation). Look at any important fight scene from FMAB, or BNHA, or the early episodes of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Those big fight scenes have a lot of key frames and details, and they all have wwwaaaay more key animation than the big fight in BotA despite being weekly tv shows.

One Punch Man is a great example because the animation in that show is fucking stellar and the director straight up said that the budget for One Punch Man is not much higher than a typical tv anime budget. Time and skill are the more important factors.

So, not speaking from the perspective of visual appeal, but from the perspective of animation quality, the big reaper fight scene in BotA isn’t that good.

Even the scene everyone raves about, where Lizzy fight all of the zombies: there’s a nice cut of her steps and a cool shot where she stabs one of the zombies in the head from above, but her sword then turns into a flash and we don’t see many details involving aim or choreography. Her stabbing them through the hallway also doesn’t have any real choreography other than her running and spinning once. After she stops to talk to Ciel, the scene gets a little more dynamic with more complicated moves, but it’s shot from far away and still has few key frames. I’ll admit I think it still looks kind of cool and maybe better than how it looked in the manga, but I don’t even think it’s close to the level of quality that’s in a lot of Bones shows.

Anyways, even if you’re in the majority camp and think these scenes look good, compare them to any of the shows mentioned above and you’ll see that even if they look good, they wouldn’t be especially difficult or expensive to animate, and aren’t impressive from a technical standpoint. 

Part 3: Make a collage with those cut corners

Shifting focus a little bit, let’s talk about Higurashi.

Higurashi is one of my top 10 favourite shows (I highly recommend it if you’re not too squeamish). This show also looks awful. Like, really awful. There’s barely any movement, the characters are off model almost 100% of the time, and it has a very simplistic art style.

Despite being outright ugly, Higurashi still visually impresses me more than BotA because of one very simple, yet very very important fact:

The director and animators are trying their best. 

Check out the scene in this gif set (gore warning). There’s a shadow silhouette, repetitive movement, and not much detail in the eyes, so it’s not technically impressive in terms of animation, but the way that the screen shakes when the bat lands, the lower angle used to put Keiichi in a dominating position of the frame, and the colour blur expressing the fact that this is both very emotionally intense and set at a different time make my brain say “ah yes, thought was put into making this scene look good with limited resources.”

Simpler yet is this scene, where it’s just two characters standing and talking while being atrociously off model. But the way they’re placed on the screen (ie parallel but opposing) is both cool visually and thematically relevant. It’s got a nice colour pallet, too.

Higurashi likes to play around with visual perspectives. This scene (violence warning) has no animation in the first gif and repetitive, fast movements in the second, but it takes the perspective of a man about to be beat to death with a baseball bat, which still makes it feel tense.

There’s another top fucking notch scene where someone is digging their own throat out with their finger nails, and instead of showing what would be a difficult scene to animate, they have a zoom in on the character’s back from the perspective of an impending threat that may or may not exist closing in on him and it’s terrifying despite the fact that nothing is animated.

Directing choices like these are extremely common in Higurashi.

Another slightly less obvious example would be Princess Tutu (which is one of my top 5 favourite shows that I recommend to everyone). Princess Tutu has very very few moments of sakuga and lots of repeated animation and kind of inconsistent movement in some scenes. 

It looks cheaply made and is not well animated, but literally no one gives a fuck because that show has beautiful character designs, beautiful colour design, and interesting/creative set pieces.

The point is it’s 100% possible to make a cheap as fuck, poorly animated show and not have it look terrible. 

I guess this is just my opinion, but when I compare the visual direction in Higurashi and the art of Princess Tutu to the flat, poorly blocked, and underwhelming visuals that make up a lot of BotA, I grow significantly less impressed with it.

The production team stuck pretty damn close to the manga, but the manga looks good because the panels are highly detailed illustrations that are specifically designed to look good when they are standing still and in black and white. They are also placed on a page which controls the visual pacing and lets you fill in movement with your imagination.

Translating this directly into animation but taking out the detail and shading in the illustrations and having the movements look worse than they did in my imagination does...not...look as good.

Part 4: Adapt

Let’s say, hypothetically, that BotA had fewer resources than most anime movies for some reason (money, time, staff, etc.). Sure, I don’t know the behind the scenes details. I doubt this was the case, but it very well might be.

.......Then why did they adapt the source material the way they did?

The manga for Kuroshitusji is fucking gorgeous and has some really iconic panels. For example, check out this post comparing a beautiful panel with the same scene from BotA.

...Why? Why would you make it that way?

Is it because you think it’ll please the fans to keep it the same? Because you wanted to cut a corner and use the manga as a storyboard?

Because it sure as fuck wasn’t because it would look good in the anime adaptation.

If the director and/or animators wanted to do the same scene but with limited resources, they could have maybe cropped it so it focused just on the undertaker’s face and the girl’s face, and then focus on making that look pretty and/or detailed. They wouldn’t have to put extra time and effort into drawing a nice full body shot, but they could still have it look good.

I came up with that time and money saving idea in less than 10 seconds and I’m not even a god damned animation director.

This goes back to my previous point, where it can be possible to make a passible looking show with limited resources, but this movie opted for sticking to the source material even though they really couldn’t do it justice.

Which is fine!!!! Embrace stylism!!! Kill la Kill has some goofy looking fight scenes with cut outs and cheeky techniques, but it does it in a way that builds the environment of the show and works within that universe because it’s clearly a part of the style. 

Heck, studio Shaft practically gets away with murder by embracing weird styles with some of their older, cheaper shows.

Those particular styles almost definitely wouldn’t work with BotA, but find your own! Adapting the source material means exactly that: adapt it. Change it in a way that makes it just as good, if not better, than the original product in this new format.

In fact, I remember 2 scenes I thought looked pretty cool in this movie: one where it’s showing how the bizarre dolls work and the animation goes all Madoka Magica, and one where it shows this shadowy version of Sebastian before he makes his contract.

Both of those scenes have a style that is unique to animation and were not in the original manga.

I mean I guess it’s somewhat admirable that they were trying to stick to the source material, but they just...didn’t do it well.

Part 5: Does anyone here know CPR?! Because we need to breathe some life into this movie!

LITERALLY ALL OF MY PROBLEMS WITH BOOK OF THE ATLANTIC CAN BE EXPLAINED IN ONE SCENE.

IT’S KIND OF INCREDIBLE HOW MUCH THIS SUMS IT UP.

So there’s this scene in the manga where Ciel thinks he’s about to watch Lizzy get eaten by zombies and is, understandably, pretty torn up about it, as seen here:

This is a really great panel: Ciel’s face is expressive, the sea water makes it ambiguous whether or not he’s crying or sweating, and it’s from a unique angle that ensures his face and desperately reaching arm are both in the foreground.

Here’s the same scene in the movie:

Ciel’s face is less expressive, the angle is a lot simpler, and minute visual details are straight up omitted. 

It’s like “yeah, we’re practically using the manga as storyboards*”

*unless the panel is like, hard to draw or expressive to the point where it might look off model.

I feel like the studio was deeply afraid of using animation that was too off model for reasons I don’t understand. Maybe it’s because they were afraid that the characters would look too unattractive but like...

it’s okay to have a character look a little fucked up if they feel a little fucked up.

Returning to Higurashi: that horror series has become famous for its highly emotive facial expressions.

Check out Rena’s furious face in the fourth gif of this set.

Or Rika’s super fucked up expression when suffering intense harm.

Or the sheer intense terror in Keiichi’s eyes in this gif and this gif set.

Like sure, the show looks like garbage and has lots of other derpy, off model faces, but they clearly had an idea of what they were going for and how to use animation as acting.

I feel that maaaybe the production team for BotA confused looking ugly (having faces distorted by emotion) for looking bad, but that’s 100% speculation.

Part of my reasoning for that speculation is in the following scene: 

So, in the manga/BotA, Sebastian and Ciel run into Druitt, and the scene plays out like a well timed joke when Druitt asks them how they know him and they go like this

and it’s funny.

The exact same punchline is in the movie but it looks like this

like, the idea of the joke still comes across, but the expressions aren’t as humorously exaggerated and the joke isn’t as funny as a result.

This is also a scene where I don’t want to hear any “this scene looks bad because of money” arguments because drawing the simplistic expression from the manga would have been easier and less time consuming. 

Again, let’s look at the comedic scenes from Higurashi:

This particular style probably wouldn’t look good in a Kuro adaption but the idea is that you can deform facial expressions for the sake of joke and sometimes it will make the joke funnier.

The point is also that Higurashi is a really well directed show despite being poorly animated. Can you tell I’m pushing Higurashi?

Please do not misunderstand this point: BotA for the most part has fine facial expressions that communicate the desired emotion. It’s fine. My point is that they probably should have been more daring with their creative choices to make certain scenes more emotionally/comedically effective.

In fact, part of the appeal of animation as a medium is the ability to play with reality through drawings.

Or just, you know, just draw a kid looking sad from a nice angle.

Conclusions:

Kuroshitsuji: Book of the Atlantic is obviously not the worst movie ever. In fact, there are quite a few scenes with good animation, good framing and competent direction. 

(Ooh, I should have mentioned this earlier, but there is a legitimately good cut where Sebastian and Ciel are reaching for each other and it shows blood appearing before you see Seb get stabbed. This was a good choice and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was not in the manga.)

I can totally see someone saying this movie looks good, and that’s a perfectly justified opinion, I just strongly disagree when looking at the overall product and how it compares to the manga and pretty much every other decently made show/movie.

I’m just upset because this arc in the manga is amazing and the most cinematic, and it clearly was not adapted to its full potential. And now it probably never will be.

Please let the impossible happen and let Bones or Madhouse get the rights for the Green Witch arc and make an amazing adaption. Pleeeaaaassseee.

When I die I want A-1 Pictures to lower me into my grave so they can let me down one last time.

That being said, if you have not seen this movie and (for whatever reason) are dead set against ever reading the manga; give this movie a watch. The story’s utterly fantastic and it’s a...watchable...movie.

But here’s the moral of this whole post:

Book of the Atlantic does not look bad just because it looks cheap. .

Book of the Atlantic looks bad because it looks bad.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Tal-- *passes out*

[theoriginalkidwithapen]

Principia – De Motu Corporum II

CW:  Violence, foul language, gore, amputation, terrorist attack, disaster

“Every body perseveres in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed thereon.”

– Sir Isaac Newton, “Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”

Ewan Finchley fidgeted with his wedding ring as he waited in the lobby.  While as a public servant of thirty years in the United Earth Ministry of Inquiry, he was no stranger to briefing the Director of his section on the goings-on in the world of organized crime and terrorism, this was the first time he was summoned to a joint briefing with the Minister for Inquiry herself.  He had to give the best presentation in the room – his section, and quite possibly his career, depended on it.  Rumor had it that, ever since his section apprehended the leadership of the Lunar crime syndicate simply called “The Organization” and ended a 50-year regime of corruption, murder, and narcotics dealing, there was little demand for organized crime policing in the august eyes of the Global Parliament, and his section was up for consideration for budget cuts.

A rather short-sighted decision, Finchley thought, especially given the new evidence he was about to present that would conclusively demonstrate that the power vacuum left in The Organization had recently been filled, meaning that all their hard-won victory had bought them was a brief reprieve instead of a permanent change in the status quo.

“You may go in now, Mr. Finchley,” the Minister’s Public Secretary said.  Time to make Section 5 proud.

Finchley slipped his ring back onto his finger, stood up, and entered the Minister’s office.  It was an ostentatious wood-paneled affair, a 22nd century reproduction of 1960s boardroom finishing – it reminded him of the lair of a supervillain from period spy movies.

Including the Minister, her Private Secretary, and Private Undersecretary, there were 12 people in the room, seated around a wooden conference table with decor matching the rest of the room.  Finchley immediately noted the presence of the Director of Section 1 – Foreign Investigations – as well as the Parliamentary Observer and his stenographer.  Despite the perfection of dictation software more than 200 years ago, tradition – as well as the law – required that a human being take the official minutes, especially if they were for a report to Parliament.

Finchley took the empty seat next to his superior, Director Salazar Amaro, at the table.  The door closed, and panels in the walls slid back, revealing monitors concealed behind them, which immediately activated and displayed the Seal of the Ministry of Inquiry.

“I’d like to begin by thanking you all for appearing at this hour on a Friday,” the Minister stated in what Finchley suspected was a not-so-subtle reference to her hijab, “I would also like to remind you all that this meeting is classified Ultraviolet, and that apart from official documentation to be shared only with persons of the appropriate security access, nothing said or presented during this meeting is to be discussed beyond these walls.  I would like to call upon the Director of Section 1, Mr. Yen, to make the opening statement.” Yen Shang, a diminutive Cantonese man who unironically wore a suit with a Mandarin collar, stood up to speak.  He drew a pair of corrective lenses – an affectation in an era of advanced corrective surgery – perched them on the bridge of his nose, and summoned a holographic document in front of him with an almost casual gesture.

“This meeting of the Ministry of Inquiry Directors has been called to determine whether the services of certain sections as complete divisions are required any further,” he read from the azure spectral brief hovering as if he were holding it in his hand, “Section 1 Undersecretary Alin Vasilescu will present our argument in summary.”

Do your worst, Finchley dared silently, I insist.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Darkness gradually turned to light as Sara regained consciousness.  She could make out four light sources in front of her, arranged in an all-too-familiar pattern. I’m sick of that goddamned ceiling, Sara thought as she recognized it as belonging to her cell.  The ventilation grille still had that dent from the last time she went berserk. Clearly they’d sedated her this time.  Sara sat up, stiff and sore.  “Fuck…” she muttered. Out of the corner of her eye, Sara saw motion in the cell across from hers.  Turning her head, she saw no fewer than four security guards escorting an elegantly-dressed woman inside.

“Hey, guard!” Sara called, “What the fuck happened to me at my therapy session!?”

“Oh look,” one of the guards said, “La Puta is finally awake!”

“Yeah, looks like you got triggered bad back there,” the guard continued as he swaggered over towards Sara, “You got crazy loco, and tried to tear that shrink apart with your bare hands!  It took a flashbang to the face to put you down!”

“Sounds pretty nasty,” Sara commented.

“You fucked him up so hard, he’s gonna be in a body cast for months,” the guard leered.  He stopped at the door and conspicuously checked her out.  “You know…” he said as he made a profoundly indiscreet advance at her, “I could get you a day off pickin’ soybeans if you showed me some of that spirit.  I like me a rough rider…”

Before Sara had a chance to refuse his offer with a few cutting remarks about his questionable parentage and insufficiently-sized sexual anatomy, the entire cell block shook violently as a rambunctious rumble reverberated through the room.

“What the fuck was that!?” one of the other guards yelled as the lights turned red and klaxons sounded.

“Decompression alarm!” the first guard shouted as the room broke out into chaos and confusion.

All of a sudden, everything but the alarms went silent.  Sara could almost hear the creaking of steel and polymers – she certainly felt the deck pitch and heave beneath her feet, and from everyone else’s expressions it was clear that she wasn’t the only one who was afraid.

“Espinosa, Kwan, Akash!” the second guard barked, “Go to the equipment locker and get decompression gear for all of us!  I’m gonna keep trying to contact dispatch!”

There was a loud rumbling, which quickly grew to a roar as the room shook as if it were in an earthquake.  A mighty gust of wind blew the guards off their feet and out the door.  The second guard desperately grabbed onto the threshold, but this last-ditch effort at self-preservation ended in a bone-crunching snap and a spray of blood as the blast doors slammed shut, severing his arm at the elbow.

The gale died down the second the doors sealed.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“This concludes my report,” the deputy director of Section 3 wrapped up. As she returned to her seat, Director Salazar Amaro rose.  “To deliver Section 5’s rebuttal, I would like to present Inspector Ewan Finchley, of the same section,” he announced, “Inspector Finchley was instrumental in Section 5’s recent arrests of the leadership of the criminal cartel known as ‘The Organization.’” Finchley rose.  “Minister, directors, observers for Parliament,” he began, “We have seen many fantastic studies, projections, spreadsheets, cost-benefit analyses, and other data and insights on how the Ministry’s resources can be most efficiently allocated, and all of it – all of it – leads to a recommendation to restructure Ministry expenditures.

“It is the observation of Director Amaro and myself that the sole purpose of this joint briefing is to justify the elimination of Section 5 from the Ministry’s budget and dividing its organised crime investigation and counterterrorism functions among the Ministry’s other sections.”  Finchley got a small amount of satisfaction at the look of indignation on the faces of the Parliamentary Observer and the other section directors.

“I bring to Section 5’s defence not bureaucratic figures and craven rationalisations,” Finchley continued, “but evidence that Section 5’s services are still required, as is.”

“I would have expected Section 5 to conjure up all kinds of fascinating evidence to preserve its lavish misappropriation of Ministry resources,” Mr. Yen commented, “but the simple truth is that Section 5 has outlived its usefulness.”

“With all due respect to the director of Section 1,” Finchley countered, “that would be a premature assessment, as I will demonstrate.”

Mr. Yen sat down disgruntledly.  Finchley’s face may have betrayed a smirk.

“Computer, access presentation file hotkeyed Finchley-036 and display,” Finchley ordered.  The room obeyed, and a holographic slideshow materialized behind him.  “On the 14th of June, 2292 at precisely 07:18 and 31 seconds East Africa Time, agents of the Ministry of Inquiry, Section 5 raided 47 facilities – 15 compounds throughout South America, Australasia, Eurasia, and Antarctica; 8 space stations in Low Earth Orbit; compartments on 9 orbital colonies in the Earth Sphere; an illegal mining base on Cruithne; an unlicensed gambling den on Eros; narcotics laboratories on Pallas and Vesta; an annex in the Discretion Compartment of Spoke Three on Ceres–”

Finchley’s presentation disappeared as the monitors in the room turned a threatening hue of red and displayed the words “DANGER – TERROR ATTACK IN PROGRESS” in 12 different languages – French, Igbo, Yoruba, Amharic, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, English, Japanese, and Russian.  The Parliamentary Observer and the Minister for Inquiry appeared briefly distracted – behavior typical of people listening to a message over an implanted inner earphone – before the Minister addressed the room. “I have just been informed that a terrorist attack in Earth territory has just begun,” she announced, “The Ministry of Security have issued a Code Red lockdown alert.  No one is permitted to enter or leave this room for the duration.”

“Where did they strike?” a shocked Mr. Yen nervously inquired, “Venus?  Hygiea?”

“An orbital colony at Earth-Moon Lagrange-One.”

A terrorist attack in the Earth Sphere, 384,400 kilometres away.  That’s far too close, Finchley thought to himself.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Words cannot adequately describe the cataclysmic scope of the destruction of a space colony.  Despite being immense structures half a kilometer across and five kilometers long, they were incredibly fragile constructs held together by the tensile strength of their structural members, and structural failure could easily cause the force of the station’s rotation to tear itself apart.

This is because in order for a structure 500 meters across to simulate one Earth gravity at its extremities, it must rotate more than 1.33 times per minute, granting objects there a velocity of 70 meters per second in the direction of rotation, or more than seven times the force of Earth’s gravity.  A structural failure at that speed could cause the entire colony to explosively delaminate, casting millions of tons of scrap metal in all directions at a rate of 252 kilometers per hour – more than enough to destroy any spacecraft unfortunate enough to collide with it.

Fortunately for the people of Earth, this was not how EML-1 #7 “Fasal” died.  An immense jet of white-hot flame exploded from the docking area at an angle against the station’s direction of rotation.  The jet only blew for a moment before it faded, replaced with a spiraling shower of incandescent metal fragments.  The mighty station shuddered for a second, and then what remained of the dock burst open, evacuating the station’s atmosphere and everything not tightly secured out into space.

Over a million people lived on Fasal.  None could yet say how many survived the disaster.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Out of the estimated 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, approximately 9,100 of them are visible to the human eye from Earth.  Naturally, when a new light appears in the sky, astronomers take notice, no matter how briefly it shines.

Neither Jon nor Misty were astronomers or astrophysicists, but as spacecraft crew they were familiar with the location and appearance of most celestial objects.  A brief flash brighter than any planet or star as seen from Earth apart from the sun, in the direction of the first Earth-Moon Lagrange Point drew their attention away from their stargazing.

“Jon!  Misty!”  Tallen barked over their suit radios, “We have a situation!”

“What kind of situation?” Misty asked with concern.

“Just get back in here!”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

“Minutes ago, the agricultural orbital colony EML-1 #7, ‘Fasal,’ suddenly exploded in what early reports are calling a controlled thermonuclear detonation…” the news anchor began to the backdrop of a clip of the ill-fated space station exploding, repeated ad nauseam.

“Holy shit…” Tallen exclaimed in a whisper as he watched the spectacle of repetitive cataclysm unfold on one of Peregrine’s monitors. Jon, followed by Misty, climbed through the hatch to the control deck, still in their spacesuits.  “Report!” Jon barked.

“An orbital colony at EML-1 just exploded,” Peregrine’s soprano voice lyricized over the speakers, “Micronesia T.C. is hailing.”

“Put ‘em on, Peri!” Jon ordered as he leapt into the pilot’s seat.  He began to strap himself in, a habit acquired from years of experience.

“Micronesia T.C., this is Manju Ray,” Jon replied as he answered the hail, “Please advise, over.”

“Manju Ray, be advised – one of our space colonies has exploded,” the traffic controller responded, “The entire EML-1 traffic control area has been declared a no-fly zone under the jurisdiction of United Earth Space Peacekeeping Operations.  Reorient to point retrograde and burn 34 meters-per-second to avoid entering the restricted area, over.”

“Negative, T.C.,” Jon replied with irritation.  A course change away from EML-1 meant that instead of delivering their cargo directly to Surveyor City by way of the Grimaldi Space Elevator, they would have to hire a lander to do the job, which would be costly and time consuming.  After the long haul from Saturn, they didn’t have enough food, water, or air to wait around for a berth at another station.  “We intend to render aid in search and rescue efforts, over.”

They’d also miss their rendezvous with Sharqi’s associate.  Even though it was unlikely that she survived, they could still try to make the pickup while doing the good works.

“All right, people!” Jon called out, “Strap in!  Peregrine, I need a minimum duration maneuver plot to that space colony now!”

“Coming up now,” Peregrine responded as Tallen and Misty followed Jon’s order and took their seats.

The plot appeared on the flight control monitor.  It was a map of the Earth Sphere, denoting traffic control zones, the locations and orbits of other spacecraft, markers for Peregrine and her destination, and the projected course and relevant data.  The proposed trajectory was unlike any of the orbits on the chart – in a world of ellipses, conics, paraboloids, and the occasional hyperboloid, this one was a straight line, its path neatly divided in half by an arrow rounded back on itself like an ouroboros – an icon that represented a maneuver called a skew-flip, where the spacecraft cuts all thrust and rotates to face the reverse of its previous heading.  It was a maneuver rarely necessary except for a course change like this one – a brachistochrone trajectory.  While horribly inefficient, it was also the quickest way to one’s destination.

“Your assistance is not required,” the traffic controller replied, “Alter course immediately.”

“Negative, T.C.,” Jon argued, “we have limited life support aboard.  Waiting in orbit indefinitely is not an option, we must proceed to EML-1.  We can rendezvous with the relief effort to resupply.”

“This is wrong…” Misty commented to herself with concern as Jon continued to argue with the traffic controller.

“Negative, Manju Ray,” the traffic controller countered, “Do not proceed to EML-1.  Reorient to your radial vector and burn for EML-2.  You will be able to resupply there.”

“Enough of this bullshit,” Jon muttered, “Peri, release hands-on control to me.”

“Kinky,” Peregrine replied playfully, “This is handoff to you.”

“Micronesia, Manju Ray,” Jon announced, determined, “Under the Rescue Agreement of 1968, this ship is obligated to render aid and assistance to any spacecraft in distress.  We are therefore proceeding to EML-1 under our responsibility to detect and avoid.  Be advised, our flight plan is being amended to include a brachistochrone approach maneuver in T-minus three-one seconds, over.”

Jon had just invoked a seldom-used navigational rule that dated back to the age of sail – when a ship was a de facto city-state with her captain as absolute ruler.  Under this rule, the captain could take responsibility for navigation without regard for the wishes of an external authority.  This had the side effect of ending any traffic control aid and was generally inadvisable, especially at spacecraft maneuvering speeds.  This ancient tradition – nearly 800 years old – carried over to aviation and later, aerospace navigation, and remained a crucial part of a captain’s authority.

Now, all that remained was to see if Traffic Control would honor his decision.  Everyone in the room waited with bated breath.

“Uh, Manju Ray?” the traffic controller responded after a long, awkward pause, “Micronesia.  Roger, service is terminated.  Proceed on your own responsibility, and retain your current beacon code.  Micronesia out.”

“Roger, Manju Ray out,” Jon replied, and closed the channel, “All right, everyone!  Brace yourselves for 7.3gs!  We’ll accelerate for 32 minutes, 57 seconds, then skew-flip and brake for another 32 and 57.  Peregrine, send a tightbeam to Union Hall explaining our situation and attach all relevant flight recorder logs.”  Jon opened the throttle, and Peregrine’s main engine roared to life with incandescent fury.  The seats in the control compartment tilted back to a reclining position to ease the effects of extreme acceleration on the crew.

For a Martian like Jon, one Earth gravity was difficult to endure, and for a Spaceborn like Misty, it was punitive.  Seven gravities, the equivalent of 68.6 meters per second of acceleration, was a crushing, immobilizing, oppressive, sadistic, flattening, choking, heart-stopping, smothering, compressing, callous, forbidding, conquering force which the human body was never built to endure for long.  While the acceleration chairs and reclined position helped, it was still a strenuous, grueling ordeal, and while Peregrine was equipped with acceleration suits, there wasn’t enough time to don them.

“Sorry about this, Misty,” Jon said regretfully.  This wasn’t going to be easy for her.

“Don’t blame yourself, anata…  This has to be done…” Misty panted breathily as she began to fade from consciousness.  The abyssal strain of acceleration was rapidly overwhelming her fragile spaceborn body.

“Peri…” Jon groaned as his lungs stubbornly resisted his will to do more than breathe shallowly, “I need you to be ready to take over in case I black out…” “You got it, commander,” Peregrine replied, unaffected by the forces her astral heart inflicted on the crew.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

It had been nearly 15 minutes since Finchley’s abortive presentation had been interrupted by the destruction of an orbital colony and the projected deaths of over a million people.  It would be over an hour before the first CETU patrol destroyer would arrive to secure the area, and another day before the first relief effort could get underway – in that time, many of the survivors could die.  It was infuriating to watch this tragedy unfold and be unable to do anything about it.

He may not be able to do anything about this catastrophe, but he might be able to prevent the next one.

“This tragedy could have been prevented,” he said to the preoccupied room, “if Section 5 had been granted the resources we requested last year.”

“I beg your pardon?” the Parliamentary Observer asked with rehearsed indignance.

“Minister,” Finchley addressed her formally, “I have reason to believe that the destruction of the colony at EML-1 was a terrorist action ordered by Mars.  My presentation today was meant to establish the connection between The Organisation and Martian Covert Operations.  With your permission, I would like to resume.”  The Minister nodded in approval. “Computer,” Finchley ordered, “resume presentation.”  Finchley’s slideshow failed to appear.

“Computer,” Finchley dictated impatiently, one syllable at a time, “resume presentation.”  The slideshow was conspicuous by its absence.

“What the hell is wrong with this bloody thing?” he asked rhetorically.

“We are in a Level Red lockdown, Inspector Finchley,” Mr. Yen patronized, “All computer functions except for essential operations are suspended to devote as many resources as possible to Intelligence system processing.”

“Fine,” Finchley sniffed, “You may examine my evidence once this crisis is over.”

Finchley straightened his posture, and continued with the air of the expert he was.  “In the months leading up to the recent arrests of The Organisation’s leadership, we were able to identify a large number of transactions between shell corporations known to front for The Organisation and the Mars Colonial Militia.  From what we have been able to determine, The Organisation smuggles materiel and personnel in and out of areas under Earth jurisdiction, as well as supply and maintain safehouses for Martian covert operatives in exchange for funding and use of some of their advanced technology.”

“Inspector,” the Minister inquired, “are you saying that these people are aiding and abetting a foreign adversary?”

“Yes, Minister,” Finchley answered, “We are confident that this is the case.”

“However,” Mr. Yen interjected, “wasn’t The Organization’s leadership crippled by Ministry raids?  Surely they cannot be in any position to aid anyone.”

“That was the conclusion we came to in the months following the raids,” Finchley clarified, “but that preliminary assessment has since proven to be inaccurate.  Seven months ago, we began to receive reports from our undercover informants in The Organisation that indicated that someone had begun to fill that power vacuum.”

“Internal politics?”

“Yes, Mr. Yen.  The person of interest is named Juda Sharqi – a 51-year-old Selenite, male, born in Surveyor City, clawed his way up the ranks from a common grunt to an influential information broker, although not enough to attract our attention at the time.  He was able to leverage the information at his disposal to blackmail his enemies and consolidate power.  It is our determination that he could not have accomplished this in so short a time without outside help.”

“The Martians, you mean,” the Parliamentary Observer concluded.

“Yes, sir.”  Finchley confirmed.

“And if Section 5 had been allocated the Intelligence processing time requested,” the Parliamentary Observer continued with interest, “this catastrophe could have been avoided?”

“In all likelihood, yes sir.” Finchley answered, “The indications were all there, it would just be a matter of collating and processing the information.”

“Director Amaro,” the Observer addressed Finchley’s superior, “do you concur with your subordinate’s assessment?”

“I would not have asked him here if I were not confident in Inspector Finchley’s conclusion,” Amaro replied.

“Well then, Minister,” the Observer declared, “with your recommendation, I will draught a proposal to Parliament requesting additional resources allocated to Section 5, for countering the threat of Martian covert operatives and their co-conspirators.”

“That is outrageous!” Mr. Yen roared as he abruptly stood up, “Foreign counterintelligence clearly falls under the exclusive purview of Section 1!”

“Zimi Beli!” the Minister shouted at Mr. Yen, who sheepishly sat down and shut up as she had ordered.

At that moment, the monitors all changed color from red to white.  “All clear,” announced a synthetic voice over the public address system, “All personnel, please return to your scheduled routine.”

“Well, I suppose that’s enough for today,” the Minister declared, “Meeting adjourned.”

As they began to file out of the room, Amaro discreetly stopped Finchley.  “Well done, Ewan,” he conspired, “You may have just secured Section 5’s place as the dominant intelligence agency on the planet.”

“Yes, sir,” Finchley answered.

[thesinglesjukebox]

THE 1975 - LOVE IT IF WE MADE IT [4.46] Get out your popcorn, it's time for another controversial One Nine Seven Five single...

Will Adams: What? It's just an ordinary The 1975 s- *reads lyrics* OH MY GOODNESS! [3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Matt Healy yelling Hot Takes™ in a wind tunnel as a warmed over INXS track plays is weirdly compelling, but not quite good. [5]

Claire Biddles: If anyone else tried this zeitgeist-quotes lyrical trick (it's barely a trick!) I would hate it, but a) I'm hugely predisposed to The 1975; and b) their inherent miraculousness somehow makes them the exception to every rule. The lyric tries to hold the enormity of the world and so does the music -- each electronic whoosh and whizz is a digital overspill from the heady whole, like even something this maximalist and ambitious isn't quite enough for them. [10]

Iain Mew: The sound is a great expansion of the omnivorous approach of the last album. Taking a beautiful twinkle and one shiny happy phrase and setting upon them with echo, reflections and a lot of noise, its sonic trip represents the overload of modernity in the compelling way that the lyrics resolutely don't. Maybe it's because I've been extremely online since way before The 1975 was a thing, but I'm already familiar with a great stream of context-free sourness and nonsense, and I'd rather not encounter any replications of it. If you're singing "poison me daddy" and "fuck your feelings" as slogans for satire, you're still singing "poison me daddy" and "fuck your feelings" as slogans. It's on a level with someone seeking out the most awful tweets to quote tweet them for clowning purposes, at best. [3]

Alfred Soto: Have these loudmouths gone and interpolated The Blue Nile? Sounds like it. "The Downtown Lights" relied on a steady pulse to put over its lovelorn message; "Love It If We Made It" relies on "The Downtown Lights" to pull a con job on fans born after 1985. I mean, why is this mix so crowded? [5]

Eleanor Graham: The 1975's music has this quality of dancing around your own mind in the stale air of Tory safe-seat mid-late teenhood in an endless cycle of UCAS and grey skies and girls and boys and club toilets with peeling paint. I don't expect anyone to be able to relate to that, but please don't equate my specificity with cosy familiarity. I'm talking about "Robbers" cutting straight to the core of everything that hurts about growing up within its first 30 seconds. Uncomfortable? Oh, god yeah! But when something so closely resembles the inside of your head, it is churlish to deny that you're a fan. All of this goes to say: I am incapable of being objective about "Love It If We Made It." Because it is essentially a dystopian "Robbers," with the same yearning indie thrum and a new urgency; because, well, you know, everything's decaying; because aren't we all thinking about the death of the republic on some level at all times, but don't we also need bangers? Of course, we should be cynical about pop songs that make half-hearted jabs at the administration and reference the deaths of children, which both 1975 singles have now done. In its defence, this one at least makes the statements "I moved on her like a bitch" and "thank you, Kanye, very cool" sound terrifying and surreal enough to remind me that "terrifying" and "surreal" should not have become platitudes. Is it toothless? Is it exploitative? Or will it be read in twenty years simply as addressing the elephant in the room? They've thrown the chorus in there -- raw, open, pleading, trailing off like a comet in the night sky -- to make all of those questions feel inconsequential. [8]

Juan F. Carruyo: A shocker in gloomtown, the song starts with a bang and it never lets up, swallowing everything in its path. The moody production suits the enveloping soundscape and it's worthy of mentioning how the bass plays against the keys in the refrain. By the time the song ends, it feels like this is the soundtrack for the rapture. [8]

Edward Okulicz: I'm massively fond of the 1975, but this is puddle-deep where it's trying to be ~meaningful~ and ~edgy~ and ~zeitgeisty~ and it's a hookless joy after the previous single's buzzy earworm. Big-name artists probably think they've earned the right to release indulgences, but we shouldn't pretend singles like this are anything more. [2]

Will Rivitz: Leave it to The 1975 to build off an earth-shatteringly good teaser single with a follow-up nearly as bad as the first was good. Look, I'm all for politically conscious songwriting, but these lyrics could have been written by any of the interchangeable and smugly ineffective liberal Facebook pages my high school friends repost material from. I can overlook the awful lyricism of "Give Yourself A Try" ("Like context in a modern debate, I just took it out," eurgh) because a) it's only occasional and b) is utterly drowned out by an ecstasy of electric guitars, but here Matty Healy's slacktivist garbage piles are given main billing. One point for the Lil Peep shoutout, one point for the glorious jangles after the second chorus reined in too soon in favor of a bridge that is somehow worse than the verses, and absolutely nothing else. [2]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I have to give credit where credit is due: this is an evil song that utilizes its structure as a means to elevate and justify its conceptual gambit. Matt Healy reads off a list of provocative phrases that act as a simulacrum of the discouraging news headlines, ironic shitposts and self-impressed hot takes that crowd numerous corners of the internet. The pulsating beat and claustrophobic mix amplify that particular dread, and the swirling harp is the only sound that feels unstuck from it all. It hints at a hope that is later projected in the chorus, but it turns out to be nothing more than a red herring. I don't expect Healy to provide answers -- I'd argue that he took the more effective route in providing a moment of release over anything concrete -- but I don't believe him at all when he says he'd "love it if we made it." This is the sort of dude who finds joy in crassly exploiting the tragedy of others for the sake of art, and it finds its roots in how he decided on the band's name. When the chorus finally breaks free from the monotony, his voice has a smugly arrogant tone that snaps everything into place: Healy is eager to be the source of relief for the trigger warning-necessary lyrics that he doled out in the first place. He can only be a savior for the bullshit he pushes on you, and he'll cover it up by touting we instead of I. As a political statement, this has virtually no worth. As a piece of music, the bridge makes exceedingly clear that this is just an edgy "We Didn't Start The Fire." As a depiction of narcissistic manipulation, this is excellent -- perhaps the best of the year. [0]

Vikram Joseph: Even without the viral billboard advertising campaign, "Love It If We Made It" is much larger than life, but offsets its pretensions with self-aware hyperbole and a streak of pitch-black humour. The genuine venom towards a society that permits Donald Trump and "a beach of drowning three year olds" is undercut by an awareness that we're all tied up in this mess -- they can get away with railing against modern existence without sounding aloof or curmudgeonly, because they're so self-evidently part of it, and, to some extent, in love with it too. The chorus is equal parts earnest optimism and grim humour, which just about epitomises their brand. There have been a lot of "We Didn't Start The Fire" comparisons, but it actually makes me think more of a half-speed, tongue-in-cheek "Ignoreland"; The 1975 feel better having screamed, don't you? [8]

Lauren Gilbert: See, I wrote an entire blurb about how this is "New Americana" v. 2018, and then promptly deleted it to write about what it means for modernity to have failed us. Spoiler alert: Modernity has not failed us, but the specific iteration of modernity of which Healy writes is certainly Not Great. Capital M Modernity is more (and less) than drugs and borders and Trump. At the risk of sounding like the pedantic graduate student I am, modernity is characterized by industrialization, market economies, nation states, individuality, and secularism (surely not the "Jesus save us!" Healy mentions). Healy's Modernity-as-characterized-by-this-song is not that. He's writing about the dissatisfactions of a left-leaning person in the Trump/May/dear-god-why-is-Boris-Johnson-still-around era, a modernity grounded in the specific sociocultural norms and events that shaped how certain rich English-speaking countries experienced in 2018. And if we consider that particular experience of modernity as the only possibility we have, it's pretty easy to conclude "modernity has failed us" and write a "We Didn't Start The Fire" of terrible things. And I'll give Healy some credit; "Love It If We Made It" does sound and feel like living in twenty-fucking-eighteen. But modernity the concept does not imply that we must live in our specific instance of modernity; we do not have to accept Trump and income inequality and in-the-future-everyone-will-be-famous-for-fifteen-minutes Modernity. And more than that, that specific (miserable) modernity is not even the only modernity happening right now. Around the world, people are living longer, healthier lives; fewer people live in extreme poverty; there are fewer wars. Healy's Modernity may feel like a prison, where we are trapped forever in endless cars on endless roads to places we don't want to go, but it is not the only game in town. I (and many others) am alive today because of modern(ity) medicine & honestly, I'll take Donald Trump and Brexit and "thank you, Kanye, very cool" as the price of being alive. Perhaps it's too much to ask for a band known for its cynicism to consider a fuller context, and the very real positives in the world we live in, but hey, why give themselves a try? [4]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

[nchyinotes]

War, Journalism and Whistleblowers: 15 years after Katharine Gun's truth telling on the verge of the Iraq War

March 2 2018

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/war-journalism-and-whistleblowers-15-years-after-katharine-guns-truth-telling-on-the-verge-of-the-tickets-42350362073#

“15 years ago, as a GCHQ employee, Katharine Gun leaked a memo revealing US spying operations on UN security council members. This simple act of bravery helped to galvanise the mass movement of opposition to the Iraq War. It also served as a telling reminder of the essential role played by the press in speaking truth to power and upholding the fabric of democratic life. A generation on, the legacy of that leak is writ large in a resurgent politics of resistance to the warfare and surveillance state on both sides of the Atlantic. This unique event brings together a panel, including Katharine herself, to discuss the lessons of that leak, and ask: What can and should we be doing - journalists, scholars, activists, citizens, policymakers - to do justice to the immeasurable public service performed by whistleblowers?

Speakers include: Katharine Gun (former GCHQ linguist and analyst responsible for the 2003 leak); Thomas Drake (former senior executive of the US National Security Agency); Duncan Campbell (award winning journalist, author and TV producer); Matthew Hoh (former US Marine and State Department official serving in Afghanistan and Iraq); Jesselyn Radack (national security and human rights attorney representing Ed Snowden among other whistleblowers); Silkie Carlo (Director of Big Brother Watch and leading voice in the campaign against the UK's repressive surveillance and official secrecy laws). We will also be airing an exclusive video message from Dan Ellsberg who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.”

Thoughts: This was easily the best event I’ve been to on this gap year so far (and i’ve been to A LOT). I had actually come in with no expectations and not much knowledge of whistleblowers or any of the speaker's, and I had decided to come based on curiosity and proximity of location. So I definitely didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed by how emotional and intense this night was. Hearing everyone’s stories (for the first time) was inspiring, and left a deep impression on me. And it was amazing to be in the company of the supportive community that was gathered there - people respect and believe in human rights and equality, and people who are dedicating their lives to putting forth the truth, who truly care and are fighting for a better world and future. The audience engagement was actually what made this night so emotional. When the third question was asked by a young woman, who was an Iraqi journalist, she began to cry when asking what she could do as a journalist to stop the destruction in her country. Katharine started crying as well, and said that she had failed. She cried several more times throughout. There was also an audience member at the end who about how he tried to blow the whistle at the UN, who has been chronically unemployed for 24 years since. Listening to the people talk about the consequences whistleblowing had for them, and the injustices they faced (Jesselyn had a miscarriage, chronic unemployment despite extremely qualified), there is also what they said about what we can all do, and it all felt very pessimistic, and I felt slightly overcome with a feeling of dread and despair. It was hard not to feel utterly depressed at the world / what I was hearing. But I think events like these are so important because they’re inspiring, and they lend support and renewed motivation and validation hopefully, for people who have blown the whistle and who may need the courage in the future. The solidarity between the panel members was palpable. And it was hard for me not to feel like tearing up when Tom Drake said that he wouldn’t be here with Jesselyn. Before this, I think I had taken for granted all the major whistleblowers I had heard about and what they had given for the public interest - Snowden, Wikileaks, Panama Papers, #metoo, NHS. I never thought much about the individuals themselves, and the toll this would take on them or the emotional resilience required. Really eye opening, and I hope to educate myself further about whistleblowers protections (which was barely touched on in my employment law module!), and to look for volunteering options where I can help.

NOTES

Act of truth telling by people (not apps or systems)

People willing to risk their lives and jobs to speak truth to power (telling secret stories of surveillance)

Free press + whistleblowing under threat

Duncan

Katherine: Difficulties in the way journalists interpreted/presented her material

Dnotices (?) - used to terrify journalists until reforms of 1980s, penalty for journalists to receive info (as heavy as source)

1960s - gave us daniel ellsberg (vietnam war) - from the post!!

British official secrets act

Tom kiok - appalling agreements between blair & bush after afghanistan invasion??, never published, both sides were jailed (journalist + source)

Reality winner - compromised by magazine set up by snowden ??

Newspapers: NYT published disinformation supporting iraq war and didn’t publish stories brought to them around tom

Espionage act, the daily telegraph ?

Katharine

Why didn’t 100s of other people who received the email at GCHQ do the same thing?

Memory has important part in people’s decision making processes

Remembered horrific scenes of retreating iraqi soldiers waving white flags in surrender and being blitzed by US aircraft (turkey shoot?) - when she was 13

Despair at the lack of humanity

Iraq suffered 10 years of sanctions

Poor people of iraq had suffered 10 years of war, then 10 years of sanctions = terrible sanctions

When bush/blair suddenly focused on iraq, everyone was just like what, why? What does it have to do with 9/11 stuff?

While at GCHQ, conference in san diego - invited to board US aircraft carrier, was told by extremely young naval officers that they would deploy this in 3 days to iraq

Started some personal investigation into realities of what was going on in iraq

Saw target iraq + war plan iraq books in local bookshop

Clearly there was no case whatsoever

Duplicitous nature - lots of fudging on the issue

Jan 31 2003 - memo from NSA, asked for all domestic and diplomatic nations on UN council, for all gambit of knowledge that would be favourable to US goals (“not GBR of course, haha”)

Assumption that of course GCHQ would do it, this is what we want you to do. Not even an ask.

Thought about it over the weekend, but already made up her mind because felt like an impending train of disaster and she had to stop the wheels from turning.

Printed it off next monday in office

Creedence to journalists that took a punt on the email, because they were very concerned about reality of it (she did it anonymously) - brave step in publishing

Govt held her on ?? without bail / charge

Liberty found out who she was and gave her lots of support/advice

Lost all her friends immediately

Couldn’t go to work

Did deliberately to make life miserable for her

Charged in nov 2003 - plead guilty or not guilty?

Didn’t feel guilty, felt justified in what she’d done → pleaded not guilty

Only defence: public interest/necessity

Asked AG for all his legal advice

Dropped charges in 3 weeks, claimed they had no evidence (but she had confessed?)

Wasn’t willing to have legality of war discussed in war room.

15 years on, don’t feel any safer - what has the war on terror achieved? Even more concerned, raising a child in this world.

We need to support whistleblowers bc they’re really under attack, journalists who are doing their job, investigatory powers act (challenged in court) - prevent them from grabbing more power because they’ve taken so much already

Norman

Daniel ellsberg - pentagon papers

Someone unknown made it possible for observer newspaper to illuminate truth about manipulations, deceptions, extent to which US/GB are willing to go to drive the war train to get the dogs to war (poodle??) in iraq

Became a huge admirer of katharine gun before we knew what her name was

Daniel ellsberg speaking about katharine gun

First person prosecuted in US (espionage act), don’t have an act like UK (official secrets act)

1) Clearly higher than top secret classification document

Someone very high in GCHQ was clearly dissenting progress toward an illegal war

Cable from NSA asking GCHQ to help in intercepting of communications of every member of security council of UN

Rely on british to commit criminal acts for them (bc they were explicitly not allowed to)

2) This was not history, this was a current cable, and before the iraq war had actually started

Intimidation, blackmail, knowing private wants - intention was to coerce UN security council vote, with material tapped

She only actually had accidental access, wasn’t that high ranking

She acted almost immediately on pursuit of illegal war on illegal means

Dan regrets not putting out the documents available to him in 1964, years before he actually gave them - of bombing, war

Didn’t have precedent to instruct him on that

Could have been much more constructive in preventing that war if acted immediately

If US had gotten wind of it before, would have probably gotten an injunction. Was hardly covered in the US, whereas lots of

US had to give up plan of getting supporting vote in UN

Blair and govt went against earlier promise to not go ahead with war unless it was supported by the council, without legitimating precedent

One of the only few whistleblowers who didn’t wait, and wasn’t dealing with historical material. Judgment that what she was being asked to do was wrong, revealing what she knew was wrong.

“Information that bears on deception or illegality in pursuing wrongful policies or an aggressive war. Consider acting in a timely way to whatever cost to yourself.“

Tom drake

9/11 was a seminal event for many people (probably up on this panel)

Shadowy beast - had joined this system (the NSA)

9/11 triggered a whole host of secret decisions at highest levels of government, and he happened to be there.

Chosen to go there due to NSA outside stakeholders saying you need new blood - is generally quite inbred??

Became the justification for public consumption (esp by dick cheney)

“never let a crisis go to waste”

C change occurred in secret

Very first priority after 9/11 was this was the excuse to invade iraq

He began to inquire as to what was the intelligence, as plans for war were basically set

Part of job is to understand what was going on

Crypto Linguist background - asked arab linguist what we have on iraq, bc intelligence is supposed to be non political, not manipulated or framed, or made up lol

NSA itself had blanket surveillance of basically any electronic signal in iraq at this time

Kept coming back to him that there was no intelligence (threats) on iraq

Culminated in someone who shared with him later that the intelligence between invasion of iraq was a lie ??

Culminating meeting? Before formal decision was made, clearly a pretence, where general colmon powell made trip to UN and proceed with what US knew was slam dunk intelligence

Made clear that despite doubts of powell, intelligence regarding weapons of mass description was absolute/etc/slam dunk

Those on the outside to give expertise stayed silent

Crucial to get passage of second resolution as ultimate cover for US led coalition in invading iraq

Jesselyn

Representing hacktivists, journalists, whistleblowers

Was a whistleblower herself, same era as Katharine, on info that had been suppressed on war on terror, and prosecution of first so called american taliban

Justice department attorney in ethics office

Placed under investigation but no reason why, placed under bar’s no fly list

Miscarriage, 100k money she didn’t have

Prosecuting tom drake for espionage - one of the most serious charges against an american, 4th time someone who wasn’t a spy had been prosecuted for it (3rd was dan ellsberg)

Over a dozen people under obama ended up being pursued under this act

Trump has renewed this with vigour, going after reality winter (25) to make an example of her

Tries to keep these cases very secret, that’s why espionage act is being used to keep behind

Matthew

She tried to save the lives of millions of people, many of whom were his friends

Wars in syria, libya, yemen

Thanked her parents in the audience - Strength, integrity

Whistleblowing is continuous, you don’t need state secrets on your computer screen to

VFP carrying banner of “never again”

Aligned against a media that takes part in glorification of war, honours militarism

Deification that occurs - has to stand up and get clapped at all sports games

It’s standing up and speaking the truth about the greeds of war + who’s profiting from them

By choosing to come here and tweet out a picture of katharine is participating in standing up for the truth

Back end - if you don’t act on your conscious or do what is right, moral injury/guilt of it is devastating, and it’s seen in US veterans community (iraq/afghanistan 6x likelier for suicide) - need to do something rectify your mind and soul (for participating in an unjust/wrong organised killing)

PTSD is the lowest rate of suicide, it’s by combat related guilt, v well documented

Silkie

Prev. on legal team for liberty

Campaigner

Met & was inspired by tom + jess 5 years ago in holland, was just starting out as a journalist, couple months after snowden

Change from public & govt since snowden - to reinstate same abuses of power

Necessary for a free society, whistleblowers as last resort to protect those values. We don’t have a democracy otherwise.

Official Secrets Act - v punitive legislation that protects power for sake of power (no accountability), no balancing of whether state secrets need to be protected for national security

We need accountability for good governance

Reaction in UK to snowden has been the worst

Law commission suggested new legislation to punish/deter whistleblowers, sentences increased, journalists punished too

Investigatory powers act - new surveillance legislation, most authoritarian surveillance regime of any in history, almost limitless power

To collect data, intercept communications, hack devices on a bulk basis (potentially population wide)

BBW has ongoing legal action against mass interception, mostly passive

Optic nerve program 2008, GCHQ - to train facial recognition program

Hard to envision more enabling program for state to commit abuses of power

State surveillance framework is one of easiest ways for govt to grow & expand its power, its one of the symbols of power in digital age - information is power

Bulk surveillance regime after 9/11 isn’t really effective / doesn’t really work - there was actionable intelligence recorded before the plot, but it wasn’t seen or picked up (probably because of millions of info being processed all the time)

If we protect, maintain, uphold democratic values within us

Changing political futures

Court of public opinion is what always wins, despite government

Panel

Journalists that do justice in the stories that whistleblowers have to tell, esp. In UK, are few and far between

Guardian editorial published today against Leveson inquiry - serious questions about so called free press

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/01/the-guardian-view-on-leveson-part-two-look-ahead-not-behind

Julian assange never mentioned

Iraqi journalist - she was only 13 when iraq war happened, what she can do to prevent further destruction in her country as a journalist

Refuse to accept continuous lies churned out by so called humanitarian about protecting ME from despotic leaders - if that was such a concern, why not in Yemen or saudi arabia

Katharine feels like she’s failed

Appalled at people anti iraq that are pro syria

Destruction isn’t being reported the way war policy is now - subjugation + punishment for people in ME (who will not be subjected to american control)

Implications of military men with no political responsibility, risen in ranks of organised murder - now in civilian posts (of government)

Organise + demand an end to it

Anyone voting for Clinton or Trump was voting for war, they were both war parties

Continue to resist on the ME people behalf

Observer failed as well - only published memo 1.5 months after it was given to them?

This is an ongoing story - katharine was not called by any inquiry, we don’t know who authorised the memo or the GCHQ operation, why the case was dropped, who made those decisions + on what basis

Funding model for whistleblowing organisations

Work way below what a normal lawyer/advocate’s salary would be

Desperately need the funding

Liberty - legal representation to whistleblowers

Public funding + support

Immediate danger of safety, employment opportunities after?

Tried to blow the whistle on UN, and hasn’t had paid employment for 24 years

Often bankrupted, blacklisted, broken - chronic unemployment despite degrees, resumes, experience in govt. People best serving the government are the whistleblowers.

Hard to get through airport security

If you have the opportunity to employ a whistleblower, please do so

After you going through the government ringer of being called a traitor, terrorist sympathiser

Tom drake works full time at Apple, had total support from them

Trying to find professorship

Business he started failed bc no one willing to partner

People have tried to help him - as an engineer, consulting in silicon valley

In severe debt, 2nd mortgage, was a senior exec

Tom would not be here today without jesselyn.

Life goes on

You can choose your conscience > career, freedom

We are all in this together

I hear the bells of history in my years each and everyday

Power does tend to corrupt, absolute power corrupts. You want to keep, expand power. It’s a pathology.

At risk from these power structures

Many people who profit from power - literally and figuratively

Those who are expendable, doesn’t matter that they’re human, they deserve what they get. Collateral damage. Form of organised genocide.

UK-US, deep transnational state relationship [1946, secret signal intelligence relationship], work in tandem and have for years

Permanent war and conflict society/economy

Nurses & care workers on abuse of elderly, office workers on accounting fraud, bank staff on banking things - don’t get publicity that we give them. We need more publicity to be given at every level, show that this is the right thing they do, support them at whatever low level. We assume whistleblowing has to be at highest hierarchy.

Doomsday book - nuclear war leaks dan ellsberg never got to dump?

US proposed complete annihilation of china even if they had nothing to do with war ??

Hire a firm to discredit you

Rawest, emotionally charged meeting - duncan

I did what i could, and you can be proud of that

People who tried to tell the truth about palestine has been silenced in the most systematic way (labour party) - has to do with military us policy. Mortecai monunu??? Whistleblower

Ted (theodore) hall

Manhattan project, scientists

Katharine: Depriving them of their moral authority

Save the world club

Intellectual struggle when choosing to whistleblow/reveal things

Jesselyn - when she whistleblew was the first time she slept soundly. How to do it, who to go to - how to do it most successfully, safely, loudly.

Most whistleblowers don’t have internal debates about what to do, have known in their gut what they should do.

Moral responsibility of journalist or editor? Haven’t even trained journalist to look at that.

Support & looking at long term consequences of putting everything on the line - who are your personal support networks, what would life actually look like?

USA has destroyed 3 generations of iraqi lives

When your own country has become an empire and engages in the utter destruction/insanity

After 9/11, USA declared the whole world a battlefield

Media democracy festival