Return of the Space Horrors

In space no can hear your spleen!

Watching Stargate Universe's opening two episodes I was struck by the thought once again how frightening space is. It's as dangerous as working underwater and because of the much greater distances involved help is that much further away if not entirely out of the question. This is just as a matter of the man versus nature plot, though it must be further extended to include machines as a part of nature, making it man versus his environment. The nature of your location is consistently deadly, but only failure of your safety devices, your ship included, can end your life in most situations. It can be debated back and forth whether the meteor punching a hole through your ship or the ship's then unsustainability is the cause of your death. There is also the matter of which is more likely to be dealt with, preventing the meteor strike or repairing the damage.

Back when Star Trek: Enterprise premiered the first season seemed to be very horror oriented with a lot of panicked what is that quickly followed by how many are dead now and look what it did to him/her. Space was a very scary place because of the aliens, so many of which were menacing, and well, alien--admittedly they could always go more alien and you would in your own setting. This is what it is all about after all. Back in the Anatomy of a Horror Setting when I covered science fiction horror pairings, options for your setting considerations, I covered how the horror of aliens works and relies on fear of the unknown. Nothing is more unknown that creatures that have never previously even come into contact with anything you know. Different biology, different outlook, different beliefs and the only similarity an expectation that the universe is dangerous.

Of course you don't have to go out into space to end up on the receiving end of its horror. Lots of times the aliens come to Earth and wreak havoc. This is one of the least well done kinds of horror for some reason. Too often they end up leaning too heavy toward the science fiction or worse they fall back on a deus ex machina to extricate the protagonists, and the entire planet, from the alien threat, which is entirely non-conducive to horror. These are not bad movies or novels, in some cases far from it, but they do not fit the horror mould. Consider how much more horror there is a hopeless situation, or better yet one with only a small glimmer of hope in the form of great determination and likely sacrifice, weighing your own morals versus the freedom or even survival of your species. That's not just great horror, that's exciting storytelling.

Mood: spacey.
Music: Isle Of Avalon by Iron Maiden and Headswitch by Bruce Dickinson.

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13 Nights of Halloween: Night #3: Event Horizon

Tonight's movie is a blend of science fiction and horror called "Event
Horizon". The first thing I can do to describe this movie is to call it something that others have called it with a bit of contempt. I consider it a selling point and I also consider it a complement when I call it "Hellraiser in Space", though of course we had for the real in the third of the Hellraiser series. The general idea is not a totally uncommon one though I love the approach that Event Horizon took. As far as the sci-fi bits go I've heard that this movie has one of the most realistic representations of a live human unprotected in space. Though perhaps that realism was based on knowledge at the time the film was made and has been become less correct since.

There is a new DVD edition of Event Horizon out since I bought my copy some years ago. The new one is in the Amazon.ca link up above (the image). The edition I have took a little bit of tweaking to maximise the film's use of surround sound. The movie has great surround once your levels are good. I love hearing the storm raging outside of the ship and how it comes from different speakers when they are in different parts of the ship--it's in an atmosphere. Another thing I love about this movie is Sam Neill's part and they way he plays the role. This is also one of those movies that has an absolutely glorious horrific set piece in it--the ship--in particular the drive room. That set was made for horror.

Mood: light.
Music: Haunted by Type O Negative.

The Void

It’s no secret that I’m working on a couple of RPG projects. One is a fantasy-based game, though really this is a terrible misnomer given the way the definition cleaves. Modern Urban Fantasy might be a closer, but is still far off the mark. The fact is to say just Fantasy means specifically Tolkienesque medieval fantasy. If you step out of those bounds and retain the fantasy “name” you do nothing but draw ire, contempt, and book returns to the store. So, I feel I need a new name for this type of project. I will keep you all, gentle readers, apprised if I come up with something.

What I wanted to talk about today was an idea that I had. To give away some secrets, a big part of the setting I am working on involves the game’s world being an artificial construct. Nothing new there, except perhaps in which of the ways it is explained and what it means to characters, players, and the GM. It’s important I mention this condition because I want to talk about outer space. This idea I’ve had involves what if more than just the planet is artificial? What if it just hangs in “space” but not real outer space, as we know it, but a true nothing? Outside of the planet’s atmosphere there is absolutely nothing, or so this idea goes.

Now let’s further assume that these “fantasy” people have a way of getting up there. What sort of horror would they face upon this realisation? This is of course assuming they didn’t know and I have a very good reason for it, but it’s something I cannot divulge, something I believe to be fairly unique. So… when it comes to the time that the beings of this planet venture out of their atmosphere, they are presented with darkness and emptiness except for their planet’s own, lonely, star.

I’m reminded of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager when they travelled through a lightless expanse of space. Of course they were used to space being full of stars and nebulas and other things. Still I can only imagine what it would be like to go from a place of everything to a place of nothing. What would these fantasy beings think? How would it make them feel? Would they even care? I have to imagine it would be terrifying. Of course I have some additional ideas to truly bring the terror, but they’re secondary to just the conditions of space in this setting. You know I have to bring some horror to everything.

Mood: edgy.
Music: Accident of Birth by Bruce Dickinson and Cemetery Gates by Pantera.

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