So I have questions that have been brewing about Hammertech and the suit seen in Luke cage
Is Justin Hammer out prison (given the level of destruction that can be laid at his feet, the answer seems to be unlikely unless the overriding need for a competing suit to Iron Man beats out mass destruction)?
If not who’s running Hammer Tech these days? Should we care? Their PR seems to be doing wonders to both the police and criminal underground.
Did we get an answer as to what would win? The Judas Bullets (what a silly name) or the Diamondback Suit (or whatever it’s called). It seemed like the bullets would win based on police assumptions.
Speaking of the Judas (snicker) Bullets do ya get the feeling they were meant to be used against the Iron Man suits? Like a final fuck you from Justin Hammer to Tony Stark? I mean his suit has been depicted in the past as nigh-invulnerable to conventional weapons.
Speaking of Tony’s suits, I guess this is Hammer Tech’s latest solution to the Iron Man suit. We’ve reached the 5 year benchmark Tony gave for the military to start churning out Iron Man suits of their own (I’m drawing a blank to how the Sokovia Accords would limit/sanction these suits) and if Justin Hammer isn’t at the helm or even if he is he might have pressed for this down-and-dirty version of a supersuit. It doesn’t fly, it doesn’t shoot. But it packs a an actual punch with the gloves and with the …bullets, have enough soldiers wearing that gear and you could give Iron Man a run for his money.
Caveat of course is that what happens int he microverse might not affect the MCU at all, TL;DR.
With the news that the new Star Trek series would be an anthology series and the first season would be set somewhere between The Undiscovered Country (2293) and Encounter at Farpoint (2364) I thought I’d trot out The Lost Era. A series of novels set between TUC and EaF. I thought I’d a quick overview of these (and this is from what I remember some of these are dimmer in my memory) if you want to read stories set in the 71 year interim:
Vulcan’s Forge & Vulcan’s Heart: A Duology focusing on Spock. Book 1 is set around 2294 or a year after TUC. Spock is in Command of the Intrepid II and Uhura is his first officer. High on Vulcan background. Book 2 surrounds the end of the Enterprise-C, Saavik (the prologue has Spock’s wedding to Saavik with a young Picard attending it as Saavik is either the CO or XO of the ship he’s serving on). Romulan intrigue, pon farr, the Romulan Commander from The Enterprise Incident. really liked it.
The Sundered: 2298. Captain Sulu, His (temp I think) XO Chekov, and Tholians, an agressive alien race from another galaxy and a mystery from Earth from the mid 21st century. loved it, and the event is followed up in the 2nd Titan novel The Red King. Another I really liked.
The Captain’s Daughter: 2294. Demora Sulu is presumed killed on an away team mission and Sulu and Harriman butt heads. It’s not one of my favourites but it delves into Sulu and Demora’s backstory. Introduces Blackjack Harriman, Captain Harriman’s father which will resurface in Serpent Among the Ruins.
Serpent Among the Ruins: 2311 The Tomed Incident mentioned in TNG’s The Neutral Zone gets a full treatment here, with the Enterprise-B, Captain Harriman and XO Demora Sulu. It’s seen as an inevitable pull of history. Satisfying.
One Constant Star:2319 Demora Sulu’s time as Captain of the Enterprise-B. It really went in an unexpected direction that wasn’t telegraphed and I liked it.
The Art of the Impossible: 2328-2346. This may be the hardest for some to get into as it follows little seen, ancilliary or novelverse characters such as General Worf (from TUC), Elias Vaughn (from the DS9 Reboot and also seen in Serpent Among the Ruins), Curzon Dax and Vance Haden (a TNG admiral). It literally went off from one line in DS9 about the Betreka Nebula Incident lasting for 18 years but I think it pulled it off pretty well.
The Well of Souls: 2336 Rachel Garrett, Captain of the Enterprise-C, Hebetian Culture (The progenitors of the Cardassians). It’s a slow burn, slow build novel that feels very personal and has some great character development but and the payoff was great.
Deny Thy Father: 2355-57. Probably the weakest of the ones here IMO, follows Riker during his senior year at the academy and first bit on the Pegasus as well as Riker’s dad Kyle. I honestly don’t remember much of it.
Catalyst of Sorrows: 2360. How Curzon and Benjamin Sisko met during his time on the Okinawa. A secret Romulan mission. I forget if this is the novel that introduces Captain Uhura as head of a branch of Starfleet Intelligence (the non-admiral rank is to avoid suspicion iirc). Pretty good there’s one lil bit that was off but a minor quibble.
The Buried Age: 2355-2364. Focuses on Picard from the loss of the Stargazer until he takes command of the Enterprise and it’s a doozy. Imagine Picard as a teacher at first, and an archaeological mystery that turns into something really, really big. Along the way he’ll meet people that he’ll eventually recruit for TNG. Recommend.
The Valiant: 2333. Follows up on TOS’s Where No Man Has Gone Before with breaching the Galactic Barrier and Picard taking emergency command of the Stargazer when the Captain is killed. Another I really liked. There was a 5-book Stargazer series written by Friedman after this but those never really clicked for me. This did.
Cast No Shadow: 2300. Call this the Redemption of Valeris. I honestly don’t remember too much of this and should reread it.Spock I think doesn’t feature as much as is implied on here but it’s tying up the loose end from TUC with the conspiracy.
The Terok Nor Trilogy(Day of the Vipers Night of the Wolves Dawn of the Eagles) Each is set in a different portion of the Fifty-year Occupation and shows us how the Cardassians initially manipulated Bajor into accepting their “protection.” One takeaway from this is that Dukat is older than I thought he was.
There’s other like Tales from the Captain’s Table and Star Trek Enterprise Logs that each have a short story set in that period as well.
Yeah major differences between the movie and what happened.
Film characters Lou Jean Poplin and Clovis Michael Poplin are based on the lives of Ila Fae Holiday and Robert Dent, respectively. The character Patrolman Slide is based on Trooper J. Kenneth Crone. In real life, Ila Fae Holiday did not break Robert Dent out of prison. Dent had been released from prison two weeks before the slow-motion car chase began. (wikipedia)
In fact the movie seems to go out of its way to blame most of this on Lou Jean, she can’t get custody of her child back, barely understands the procedure how to so she goes to the Pre-Release facility where her husband is at, and he’s got 4 months on a 1-year sentence and manipulates him and nearly drags him out of there despite his protestations (she wears two sets of clothes so he can wear one.
In reality Robert Dent had been pulled over for a routine traffic stop but did not know why. He panicked and drove off.
In the movie, they hitched a ride with an old couple who drive painfully slow and are pulled over because of the driving. The couple is out talking to the patrolman when Lou Jean panics and she drives off.
In real life they aren’t chase by Crone but make it to the woods and hide their vehicle there. They call the cops from a ranch house posing as hitch hikers that have been beaten and robbed. That’s when Crone enters the scene. He’s beaten and disarmed and taken captive. They take him to his cruiser and just tell him to drive.
They really didn’t have any plan. They kidnapped the patrolman, same as in the movie, but it’s not until some time that they demand to go see his stepkids, her kids at her mom’s house…in Wheelock. The whole thing does last a few hours (rather than a couple of days) and involves over hundred vehicles and goes from Port Arthur to Houston to Navasota and finally Wheelock.
In the movie they crash their car with Officer Slide in pursuit. Clovis is dazed and Lou Jean fakes being hurt so she can get close enough to slide, grab his gun and *tosses it* to Dent. She puts him in the position again of escalating things. it takes him a few moments and he’s slower than Slide to go for the gun but he reaches it first.
The end result is the same, but all three walk up to the house and Dent is shot and killed when he opens the door (rather than a sniper bullet).
Whether Crone gave his tacit approval for this film I don’t know but he did serve as a technical advisor and played a small part in it as a deputy.
And Ila Fae Holiday? She served 5 months on a 5 year sentence (rather than 15 months as the movie states) and apparently died of natural causes in 1992 working at a motel in Livingston (although what are natural causes at 44 y.o.?)
