Sleeping for a week ...

... Arising to write a few words.

That's a wonderful sleeping dragon isn't it ? (Picture credit - Sticky Beak Boutique and here's the link to the Amazon page that Google pointed me at)

Ok, so I haven't been asleep since Friday but I have been enjoying my week off work so far. And it's just a rumour that I've been indulging in a 5 day Stellaris bender ... Maybe.

There's been lots of music listened to now. Even with a Portishead album, Evanescence's Synthesis and a Sophie Ellis Bextor orchestral album appearing, I've listened to everything in the library now ! Need more new music. Got a few things in mind but music has gone overpriced and I like my bargains.

It hasn't been all Stellaris. There's been a little bit of the internet spaceships too :

That's the Strength of Atlas on approach to one of the planetary bases. I do like the amount of detail that is added to these bases.

I'm pretty sure it's all programmed in as part of a toolkit approach where the designers have a box of bits that when stuck together, comprise all of the bases ... but it looks fresh whenever you visit a new place. And especially the planetary bases.

And there's a toolkit for the space stations too. In this one, you dock inside the ball and the rest of for your imagination. I think this one had a habitation ring aft, up above the top of the picture, wider than the docking bay ball. If you landed on one of these and only spin gravity were available, you'd be in low gravity in the docking bay which would handily suit docking operations and make cargo handling much easier. Same mass, less apparent weight. And then you'd be in zero g in the spine, transiting up to the higher gravity habitation ring.

I found this as well, an unexpected interchange zone in the middle of the station. Never seen one of those before. It's lovely to see all that unexpected detail.

But anyway - Stellaris ... the latest game in the hunt for the achievements saw me going for the Authoritarian run, where you need 500 population units with at least 200 as slaves. Done that ... although I've gone away from the slavery approach now and emancipated everyone because there were serious problems keeping everyone happy.

There must be a morality thing in there somewhere. Which I'll completely ignore when I close out the game fully because there's another achievement "Keep at least 5 different species as livestock in your empire." On one hand, emancipation of the slaves. The other hand is fetching the dinner plate. I sense it'll be easier to get that achievement in this playthrough instead of the more obvious approach of bringing out the Nomnivorian Swarm (devouring horde) again. The Swarm hungers ... and eats quickly.

I've had deliveries this week too ! Today actually. I don't like to order stuff online unless I can be around for when the delivery happens. So Meltdown's components got acquired when I was last on leave and today, these turn up :

Portable bluray drive - I didn't transfer over the bluray drive from my previous desktop because I thought it was bust. And ... proven correct. There were some jitters and issues when I first fired it up (sound plays but screen goes black) but those mostly went away with a reinstall of the software. Still not perfect though, there were still skips happening. Must test more.

But I did manage to watch and enjoy Rogue One again. It's a cracking movie. I may well work my way through Eps 4 to 8 again before Rise of Skywalker comes out. I'm expecting that one to be absolute junk for story, as per eps 7 and 8 but I think it'll be another stunning spectacle of a movie.

Why do I say that ?

There was an Expanded Universe of books and games that built upon the original trilogy of Star Wars. The X Wing game in particular was a prequel to the first movie, A New Hope, with the Tie Fighter game picking up afterwards. I came to X Wing late and struggled with it (a different era of games which went to insane difficult to gate your progress) but I hugely enjoyed Tie Fighter.

There were many important and incredible books too. I'm thinking of the Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston X Wing books and the Timothy Zahn books in particular. They expanded upon the worlds and galaxy introduced with the movies and added rich storytelling. I also enjoyed the Knights of the Old Republic (aka KOTOR) game, set 4,000 years before the movies and should really finish Kotor 2 at some point.

Anyway, all that rich story material was swept aside with the new movies which were stunning spectacles ... but really bad for whether or not they make any sense. Star Wars doesn't really make sense anyway but you'd like them to make a bit of an effort for it to.

That said, they make for an incredibly good spectacle and I really enjoyed watching The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.

And then there's Rogue One, which was a stunning movie. I suspect Rise of Skywalker will be a stunning conclusion to this epic series. Although .... George Lucas way back said there were going to be 14 episodes in the series. Hmm. At least I think he did.

What else appeared ?

Advent calendar is sorted :-D. I don't think the other packets will last until then somehow ...

PS Ever since I had my attention drawn to it, I can't not see the difference that makes the Star Destroyer in the picture above an old one ... On the tower between the two shield domes there is an additional bit of detail there. That makes it an Imperial class Mk1 Star Destroyer. The bit between the domes is different on the Mk2 Imperial Star Destroyer. And ... the latest trailer for Rise of Skywalker apparently is showing the older ships. Curious. Perhaps it's reuse of ancient models ? Probably a JJ Abrams special. But there might be something more to it.