Thursday, June 13, 2013

Rogue Planet

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Archer and Reed were both Eagle Scouts, but Reed had more merit badges. He even had the badge for hunting eagles! (It was a badge made of eagles.)

There's a dark planet tooling around without a system (rather like the Changeling world). It's the happy hunting ground for the Eska, who call the place Dakala. It's got an amazing ecosystem- with lichen in the shape of leafy plants emitting oxygen despite the lack of sunlight, and flowers producing ambient theatre-grade moonlight as a byproduct of space magic.

Hunting went out of style on Earth before 2050. Why, I wonder? 2053's World War III seems to indicate we weren't that enlightened or compassionate. Did we just run out of animals? Especially eagles? (The Beta Romeo has a dashboard inlaid with the beaks of a thousand eagles! Also there are some eagles under the floorboards.)

The humans politely chum around with the drunken hunters, and agree to eat the results of this disgusting display of primitivism, but only disapprovingly! Be vewy, vewy qwiet, we're hunting drayjin. They're conveniently similar to CG Targs, only with fewer spikes. And there's Wraiths to hunt, too. Only much, much easier targets than Stargate Atlantis' Wraiths of the Pegasus Galaxy. This Wraith won't drink your life-force, instead it appears to the Captain as a lovely woman, calling him by name. Now that I think about it, maybe the changelings ARE here after all. Playing 'The Ghost and The Darkness' for some reason?

Lady Wraith claims to be telepathic, and that's probably true, considering how well she speaks to Archer. If it wasn't for that, and this being the wrong quadrant, I'd say this "Rogue Planet" is Odo's world. You wouldn't think there'd be that many sunless but magically liveable places where solids persecute the shifty. And can a giant slug really look back over its shoulder coquettishly?

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