Sleestak,

Aren't sleestack the pointy headed aliens guys from the land of the lost tv series? Man that brings back memories.




Iran or al queda. Either way a nuke in Jerusalem or Israel would set a serious confrontation into motion. Scary stuff.

Enik was the Sleestak from the future...

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TEAM
LL

Enik's first meeting with the Marshalls, with Rick holding the Mageti.

Enik, introduced in the episode "The Stranger", is not technically a visitor to the Land of the Lost, being one of the original Altrusian inhabitants from before their civilization fell. However, he too fell through a time doorway to become trapped in the current era of the Land of the Lost. He was originally equipped with a piece of Altrusian technology called a Mageti, a large crystal suspended in a tetrahedral frame that Enik described as a "divining rod" that could be used to locate and fix dimensional doorways, determining where and when they would open. The Mageti had a self-destruct mechanism that triggered when its user experienced sufficiently strong hostile emotions; this was a safeguard to prevent it from falling into non-Altrusian hands. Will Marshall inadvertently destroyed it and forced Enik to rely on a different and less-suitable device (a "companion piece" to the Mageti that was worn around his neck as a pendant) to continue his efforts to return to his own time and warn his people of their fate.

Enik is quite contemptuous of the state the Sleestak have descended to since the fall of the Altrusian civilization. The Sleestak return the contempt, referring to him as "the dwarf", and fear that he intends to seize power over them.[8] He is equipped with a bracelet of crystals he can use to cause people to be overcome by hallucinations of their greatest fear, however, and so the Sleestak generally give Enik wide berth. He spends much of his time during the series in the Lost City, working with a crystal matrix table there attempting to open a time doorway home.

In addition to his shorter stature and different skin coloration, Enik is distinguished from the Sleestak in that he wears a distinctive red garment (Sleestak do not wear clothing). This garment was added to his costume when the wetsuit Enik's skin was crafted from shrank after rubber scales were glued to it, requiring slits to be cut across the front in order for Walker Edmiston to fit inside.

A being resembling Enik, suggesting that his appearance is typical of Altrusians - or possibly Enik himself - was seen in what is presumably the Lost City from the time of the Altrusians[9].

Walter Koenig, the scriptwriter of "The Stranger", originally named this character "Eneg", in honor of Gene Roddenberry. As noted in an audio commentary on the DVD, the spelling was changed to Enik (reverse of the Greek root word for "cinema") by David Gerrold, before the episode "The Stranger" was filmed.

Many episodes refer to or take place in Enik's cave, which contains a time doorway and lies near the Sleestak god's pit, and is accessible through the central of the three entrances into the Lost City. Enik also appeared in the episodes "The Search", "Circle," "Fair Trade" and "Blackout."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleestak

;D

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

The same theme is central to H G Welles' 'Time Machine'.

Civilizations rise and fall. Wonderful when so many of them now have nuclear powered Ballistic Missles. Be wonderful when the next civ discovers them.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

But would said civilization recognize what they've found?

I doubt it, not out of arogance, but as a practical matter. IMO, civiliazation Y has a hard time understanding technology from civilization X. Even more so if there isn't an analogy tech within the second civilization to reference. For example, if we didn't have a calender, it would be far harder to recognize one if we found it. With so much of our technology dependant on electricity, and our likely end (nuclear war), most of our world will be gone (fire destroying paper references, and EMP wiping out all electronics).

They may find a man-made cave, and inside some of those a large cylindical thing with a pointy end made entirely of metal. With no electricity to power it, or an incompatable standard of delivery, its function would not be appearant. If we consider time as a factor, it would take a considerable amount of effort (even if they knew what it was and the tech behind the systems) to get them back into a ready state.

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Still looking for something profound or inspirational to place here.

'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' is what I was basically thinking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

That Wiki Link on the Fermi Paradox sure examines the question in detail. I should have read it before posting. Love it when I think I have a bright idea, then discover others have thought of exactly the same thing years before.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

I rather envision building an intergalactic beacon. Perhaps form a black hole and start feeding it stars on a regular basis. Maybe align galaxies in specific patterns? If relativity holds up these may be billion or multi-billion year projects. Bit tough to sell to today's corporate boards, but to a civilization with 5 billion years under it's belt?

We don't seem to see anything of that nature out there though. Some early false hopes, darn pulsars. So far though, no where we look do we see evidence of mind.

An intergalactic beacon is a great way to invite nefarious aliens our way, who could destroy us all. Human history is full of bloody clashes between different civilizations when they discover each other. And that was just in-fighting among the same species! I hope our species will never advertise itself to the universe, if it makes it far enough without destroying itself to even think about such a thing.

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Amazing how you Reagan bashers, with Ronald Reagan being the great bugbear of the left wing anti science crowd, is invoked yet again to be the villain who 'almost pushed the button' when most american and ex soviet historians dispute this claim....(Please do not play to 'good or above' politics and war to acknowledge the military value of exaggerated claims of capability directed during cold war--it worked)

Just an observation of how the proponents of science education/research/funding, etc ostracize what the left calls the 'right wing'.
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This observation comes from one who is not religious in any way or 'spiritual' or 'moderate' or 'conservative'.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I rather envision building an intergalactic beacon. Perhaps form a black hole and start feeding it stars on a regular basis. Maybe align galaxies in specific patterns? If relativity holds up these may be billion or multi-billion year projects. Bit tough to sell to today's corporate boards, but to a civilization with 5 billion years under it's belt?

We don't seem to see anything of that nature out there though. Some early false hopes, darn pulsars. So far though, no where we look do we see evidence of mind.

An intergalactic beacon is a great way to invite nefarious aliens our way, who could destroy us all. Human history is full of bloody clashes between different civilizations when they discover each other. And that was just in-fighting among the same species! I hope our species will never advertise itself to the universe, if it makes it far enough without destroying itself to even think about such a thing.

By the time we can build the beacon I referred to I rather doubt that will be a problem. To clarify, the beacon would be intergalactic. The idea is to send a message across the Universe, not the Galaxy. The beacon would be visible across billions of light years (after billions of years of course). It's message would be simple, "there is/was mind here". Tough thing would be not killing everything nearby :-( My original idea of dropping dying stars on a black hole might not be to healthy. We need a method of producing supernova scale events but without the nasties such as gammas. We also don't want to destroy anything that might one day develop life.

It's difficult to comprehend what a multi-billion year civilization could acomplish.

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So sorry - Reagan was a bloody brainless twit. I really, really liked him, because he was such a good actor - I knew what he was up to everytime he gave a speech, but he was just so likeable! Very very few politicians are likeable. He did some good things, he did many bad things. How much of the 'finger on the button' was posturing for image? I don't know.

But it doesn't matter. I take it very much to heart when me and mine are held hostage; and we prosper only because two men decide to keep the peace.

Now. It seems to me that someone as intelligent as Carl Sagan would have very quickly understood the numbers of systems that should hold life in our galaxy alone, (Drake Equation); balanced by the Fermi Paradox. He sure warned alot about nuclear winter. It seems to me that he must have considered this as the explanation? I would tend to trust his judgement better than my own in a great many cases.

Getting the hell out of this system and colonizing wherever we possibly can seems to me to be the only hope to retain our species. We need to get out there, as soon as possible, and it's quite clear to me that we need to do it privately; the governments of the world will never getr their derriers into gear. The planetary society almost had a solar sailer going, were it not for failure of the launch rocket. This is the way to keep going. Test larger and faster vessels, and get the hell out of the solar system, hundreds of times. Hopefully we will have some places to go that won't take alot of engineering to live there.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

"There's no place like home." click-click-click

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

bump

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

What's that supposed to mean??

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

"Bump" is used to bump up the topic so it is on top of the other threads in the forums.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Interesting and also the subsequent posts

It's strange now that we could be more worried about global warming, rising sea levels and climate change than any nuclear bomb scare

Perhaps we are too dangerous, just being ourselves...

Think about THAT!
Carl Sagan often warned about nuclear winter in the 80's, when it seemed that Reagan was about to push the button at any instant. He used examples of civilizations that had nuked themselves out of existence more than once.

What if his warning turns out to be even bleaker than that? What if ruin after ruin is the only thing out there?! Somebody has to be the most advanced - wouldn't it be a crapper if that was US?!?

Maybe our lovely little war-riddled planet is simply being sequestered from a rich galactic civilization, that would no more invite our membership at the present than you would invite chimps to a dinner party.

I am not suggesting even for one second that we abandon SETI due to this speculation. But I'd have to agree with Fermi - where the heck is everyone?!?


PS - Much as I hate BOINC and refuse to use it, I still love the idea of SETI. So I'll happily and agreeably talk about these other subjects.

I can't disagree that we may be the only "intelligent" life in our part of the galaxy, but I'd hate to think that we are the only "intelligent" life in the galaxy as a whole. It also begs the question of what is "intelligence" - let's call it life that can build civilisations and consider (and even possibly achieve) space travel (and I don't mean interstellar travel).

Live long and crunch.

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So much to worry about it's hard to keep track of which one is the biggest/earliest threat. Asteroids/meteorites, WMD, Mad chicken desease, you name it.

Ain't life a peach?

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

No big loss if humans wipe themselves out. If USA allows an idiot like George Dubya in, and Canada a thief like Paul Martin, (or 'reform' weasel like the current PM, Steven Harper), then we should be bug-sprayed out of existence by the galactic tribunal.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

We can only assume idiots will be elected as they outnumber us.

Hallmarks of an idiot are;

1. Hate ideas that oppose there ideas, however weak these are
2. Use emotion to discredit others with ridicule etc
3. Make up names that deride and ignore anything technical
4. Live in a peer group that is comfortable to them and excludes others

I see two people here in that category. I also read with interest the cases of "text bullying" where young people suffer this torment and commit suicide. I wonder if "text thugs" is a better term for them? I wonder if these two in question have causes similar events - probably it would be a laugh to them

Maybe it would be no great loss - it's hard to see any beauty in some people

No big loss if humans wipe themselves out. If USA allows an idiot like George Dubya in, and Canada a thief like Paul Martin, (or 'reform' weasel like the current PM, Steven Harper), then we should be bug-sprayed out of existence by the galactic tribunal.

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Sadly, the Darwinian process does not strongly select against the religious. I really wouldn't mind if the current anti-intellectual phase were to get so bad that scientists were attacked by the religious. Our greater intellect and ability for invention would allow us to wipe them out so fast, and then the human species would be soooo much better off! A big leap forward in social evolution, instead of the leap backward that's threatened in the US lately, and has been ongoing in the middle east.

If we're the most advanced thing around for thousands of parsecs, man what a sorry state the galaxy is in. I hope we wipe ourselves out rather than pollute simpler civilizations with christianity, muslim, or any other hair-brained religion.

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.

Very curious Chuck "Sadly, the Darwinian process does not strongly select against the religious."

Surely it would - as humans turn to canaabilism and other human atrocity. Would this not detract from our survival?

I don't know, perhaps we evolved despite ourselves :)

Sadly, the Darwinian process does not strongly select against the religious. I really wouldn't mind if the current anti-intellectual phase were to get so bad that scientists were attacked by the religious. Our greater intellect and ability for invention would allow us to wipe them out so fast, and then the human species would be soooo much better off! A big leap forward in social evolution, instead of the leap backward that's threatened in the US lately, and has been ongoing in the middle east.

If we're the most advanced thing around for thousands of parsecs, man what a sorry state the galaxy is in. I hope we wipe ourselves out rather than pollute simpler civilizations with christianity, muslim, or any other hair-brained religion.

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Through archaic history, religion is a strong selection for group survival. This is due to the strong societal duties it instills. Look at how the fanatical muslims have more than a toe-hold on the middle east - they keep blowing themselves up along with their hated enemy, but replace their numbers faster than they thin them out. Theirs is a dark age rationale and culture that uses the weapons of the space age. The other peaceful muslims throughout the world are very uncomfortable about all this chaos I'm sure, and how it unfairly reflects on them, simply because they share the larger part of their religion. But I'm also sure that if muslim religion everywhere was banned in an effort to stop the few radicals, then all muslims everywhere would band together to fight for their freedom of religion - this is the groupism religion is famous for.

Now, in the space age, religion generally hampers free thought and progress - look at stem-cell research being stifled because it is 'against god'. I don't see stem-cell research labs being scorched off the map by divine lightning! But when Bush decided he wanted Iraqi oil, well all he had to spew out was 'god is on OUR side' (despite Allah seeming to be quite the victor on 9/11)and then most aallll of the military were frothed up and willing to go to war for their president and their god! When the truth is that it's only for oil.

Frightening, what a few key words can accomplish, isn't it?

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Never Forget a Friend. Or an Enemy.