A Geek History of Time - Episode 103 - Starship Troopers Book vs Movie Part I

Episode Date: April 24, 2021

So thank you all for coming to Cocktalk. He has trouble counting change, which is what the hands think. Wait, wait, stop. Yes, but I don't think that Dana Carvey's movie, um, coming out at that same time, was really that big a problem for our country. I still don't know why you're making such a big deal about September 11th, 2001. Fucking hate you. Well, you know, they don't necessarily need to be anathema, but they are definitely on different end-to-end spectra.

Oh boy, how do you say I have a genetic predisposition against redheads. So because you are one, yeah, combustion, yeah, we've heard it before. The only time I change a setting is when I take the hair trimmer down to the nether reaches, like that's the only time. Other than that, it's all just a two. I'm joking, I used to eat. After the four gospels, what's the next book of the Bible? Acts.

Okay, and after that, it's Romans. It's a chapter. Yeah, okay. And if you look at the 15th chapter of Romans, okay, you will find that it actually mentions the ability to arm yourself That's why it's AR-15. Thank you. Checkmate-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8 This is a geek history of time. We're a We Connected Irnery to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. Now finishing up my first week of hybrid instruction after a year away from my classroom.

And I have to say it has not been quite the complete cluster fuck I had expected it would be. Still don't entirely see the point of why I'm back in a classroom when I only have five kids showing up at a time and I'm not introducing any new material while I have those five kids in the room and they're having to sit four feet apart from each other. I mean the laundry list could go on but you know we're political, the political will in this country seems to require that we have a performative attendance on the part of students and so I'm doing my part to enable that. Would you like to know more?

No, because I live it on a daily basis and it's depressing. Yeah, it really is. Larger because I'm a Latin high school teacher up here in Northern California. And I actually just got the paperwork that says that I can remain at home until the end of the year, which is really, really cool. This bump, you can't see it, of course, in radio land out there, but that's what we just did.

Yes. But I really like that I've got such as a port of admin. Actually, it's kind of nice. Yeah, it's me. And frankly, I like a supportive admin. Actually, it's it's kind of nice. Yeah, and it's me. And, you know, frankly, I like that my admin's vision because he does have a vision, but my admin's vision seems to be one of, I'm not going to last as long as any of you are because history is a thing. So I want to empower you all so that it's not based on the permissions and Personality of the person in charge, but instead on the culture of the campus that you and I help create

Which is really nice which means that for the wow. Yeah, believe it or not a human in charge. Yeah So believe it or not that means that for the next six weeks weeks or so, as kids are coming back next week, he said that the academics matter a whole lot less than taking care of the people in front of you. So take care of the people in front of you. And if that's academics, that's great. And if it's not, that is also okay. If they just need a day to cry, then let let them have that data cry. Don't worry about how far you covered into the chrimeon war Wow, yeah, it's neat. It's cool. I really really really wish my principal would Have a come to your principal meeting. I I

Wish my principal would go out on the road and teach other principles how to principal because He actually puts the word principles back into the job of principle. Where do I sign the petition to get him to do that? I keep trying to get you to come into my district. Yeah, and recent events, that's getting not any more likely. Like, you're just saying, you know. But so our out to just move away from that depressing topic and to, I don't know what might turn out to be a different one.

So a moment ago I asked you, would you like to know more? I did catch that. And I don't know why it tweaked my brain. Okay. It's familiar, but I don't remember what. So, so what do you remember about the year 1997? Oh, I moved in with producer George. There you go. Producer's George is now wife of more than 20 years.

Used to drive producer George and myself to A-Kid computers. I remember a lot about 1997, I really do, because we had a new movie theater that opened up just not too far from us. We can walk to it. Very cool. And it was really cool because it was brand new, so you didn't have all the stains and stickiness.

And I remember there was one movie that we went to see, just kind of on a whim. And I had had, I was like, okay, this looks like a fun little action flick cool, okay But there were only enough seats for four of us and uh Three of us guys decided we wanted to go see this one and that meant his wife had to go see something else So we kind of started a fight between them by going going to watch starship troopers. Okay, so it is and there you go What would you like to know more? Oh, that's what it's from yes, why I thought of that by going to watch Starship Troopers. Okay. So, and there you go. What?

Would you like to know more? Oh, that's what it's from. Yes. That's why I thought of that. Yes. There you go. Precisely. So, we're going to be talking about Starship Troopers today.

Okay. Sounds good. And the issue that specifically we're going to talk about in Starship Troopers is Heinlein, Robert Anton Heinlein. No, very much for his ability to draw the back end of Bauderick, if I recall. That too. Yeah, he drew the cover for the movie 10, where you see Bauderick's rear end in a silhouette. He drew a really good Heinlein. Oh, very nice. Thank you. Well done. Well done. Well done. Bo Derrick's rear end in a silhouette. He drew a really good hind line.

Oh, very nice. Well done. Well done. How far in 520? Yeah. OK. All right. Kind of slipping.

It's not my fault you talked so much about middle school. OK. Well, great. There was that. So but Robert Anton Heinlein, R-A-H, wrote a novel in 1959 that became the basis for the movie Starship Troopers. Oh, okay, so 1959.

So he's already an adult. He's, I assume. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, he's already, I got a short bio. Oh, good, good, good. Okay, so. That's the beginning here. okay then then continue. Okay, so the the the

Title in subtitle of this episode is movie versus book Starship Troopers. Oh or Highline wasn't a fascist, but Verhoeven made him one So in in 59 Heinlein drew a fine line Between nice. Thank you. Okay. I like see even mad there. No, not even not even mad. All right He also he raised hunting dogs. I don't know if that's in your bio But no it is not yeah, I know that the Heinlein canals for Wymorine or Heinleins No, it is not. Yeah, I know that the high line canals for whimeriner hind lines. Yeah, whimeriner. Okay. All right. You stretched on that one. Yeah, so to the dog. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So

So in 1958-59 There was the announcement came out here in the United States that was the announcement came out here in the United States that we were gonna be in an effort to cooperate with the Soviets. We were gonna be suspending nuclear tests. Nice. Okay. As part of negotiation with the Soviet Union. By this point, both of us have the H bomb, correct?

Yes, by 59 nuclear. Okay. And so we were gonna be suspending nuclear tests. Mm-hmm. And in 1954, just to give a broader idea of where in the Cold War we're talking about, in 54, John Foster Dulles started us down the road to mutually assured destruction as Secretary of State. As a deterrent or as a hell of a good idea? As a deterrent.

Oh, okay. The idea of a short destruction is, you know, he talked of massive retaliatory power in defensive US allies at a function with State Department people. It's basically NATO. He gave a speech. Well, yeah, NATO and later. So, okay, so in 54

NATO, first of all, got got formed after World War II. Yeah, so 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, you're right. And then Cito was formed in 54, Southeast Asian Treaty organization. In 57, we get the Eisenhower doctrine, meaning we're gonna defend Middle Eastern nations against communist aggression. Which was Mito. Nice. Thank you.

Except we never actually formed a treaty organization in that part of the world. Oh, really? No, yeah. Turkey wound up eventually. I don't think they were part of it in 57, but eventually Turkey joined NATO. Right.

But it's funny, but none of the other... You'd think you would want Turkey and your Mito you you really would yeah wouldn't you you know you know but but I guess because Europe and the boss bris and you just kind of greased the skits nice thanks massively don't in that. So, and then strategic air command started there 24, 7, around the clock watch for Soviet missiles in 57. And in 58, we designed a treaty organization that fell through, but it was with China and Mongolia, it was called Cheeto.

With Chester as the first secretary. Yes, yes, yes, yeah, no. No. So in 57, the Soviets launched Sputnik, which was the beginning of the space race. Right. And then in 58 into 59, is the Berlin air lift. Wait, December 58 into 59.

That's 50, 59? Yeah, that was that late. It really is that late. Oh, no, that's that late. It really is that late. Oh, no, that Truman did that. That was 4849. Hold on. Yeah. But meanwhile, while you're looking that up,

also we started a treaty organization for the Olympics, specifically with, I believe, France and Azerbaijan, because they both had really good swimmers and we started Speedo. Hey, right, 48 and 49. How did I get that? Yeah. And I'm just going to completely, I'm going to swim right past that. Oh, well, but, yeah.

So we're not talking about, this is not the high water mark of the Cold War. No. Okay, we're not at high tide yet. Right. But the tide was very clearly on the rise. Yes. And tensions between the US and the Soviet Union were continuously gradually, but at an accelerating pace. It was like a steady increasing drum What was that? Wow. So

Because then we got because then we tried to get a fiddle cast or to play for the Pittsburgh pirates But he didn't like the shoes that he had to wear cuz he didn't want to wear cleat toes Okay, all right I just move on okay, just keep moving on. We did form a treaty with Scotland, and it was called Blito, because of the sheep. I guess so. So how was it sure whether it was the sheep or the pipes? But there you go.

So, so, Highline, first off was at Scoliosis, so you had a crooked spine line. Spine line, yeah. Didn't actually, because he wouldn't have been able to get into anapolis with that. He was a, he was a Naval Academy graduate class of, I have it here somewhere, I'll find it.

And he graduated number five in his class academically, but number 20 overall because this pretty merits. Okay. Which tells you a little bit about his personality. Well, it also tells you the culture of of the academies. Yeah. Yeah. Because if I and I might be wrong on this, but I do believe that William Appleman Williams, the historian, also I think was either just some naval academy or anapolis. Okay. Yeah, which is really interesting. I should probably look that up. Yeah.

But yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so, Heinlein had by, by 1959, Heinlein already had an established career. He'd written stuff that, that science fiction fans do this day. It's, it's his works. Many of his works are considered part of the canon of the form. And he had been writing since the 30s, you know, the book of his that is dearest to my

heart is Have Space Suit Will Travel. Which was one of a big long series of juvenile science fiction stories that he wrote for Think like 1112 13-year-old reader. Yeah, young adult fiction. Yeah, young adult stuff. Yeah, um, and Starship troopers marked the end of the young adult writing in his career So it's young adult. It's well, yes, and no. Okay. It could be, but he, he didn't really intend it that way, but because of kind of one of the things that the novel is, there are themes from the juveniles, as his fans refer to, to the young adult stuff that he wrote, there are themes from the juveniles that carry over into his work. And I want to take a moment to do a little bit of a segue about politics and

science fiction before we even get started. And before. And before. And before. Into Starship Trooper specifically. Yeah, before you do that. So Highline graduated in 29. Okay. So Highline 29. Yeah. And William Appham and William's graduated in 45. Okay. And what I find fascinating just right there is you have two very prolific writers in their

fields. Yes. William Appham and William's was like the sea right mills school of history. Yeah. And he developed the Wisconsin school of history, which was essentially, instead of the Cold War, was predatory communism. It was, it's a smokescreen for predatory capitalism. Okay.

And it's not like he didn't have a sh** ton of advice. From an apple of a scratch. Yeah. But that's the thing. And he talked about, and this is why it twigged me so much, because, you know, Highline is predating him by 16 years. Yeah. But it's possible they had similar or the same professors. It's possible.

Potentially. And I know that William Appam Williams, he talked about when he was in his English class, because it's a college. Yeah. When he was in his English class, he had to his professors assigned like 10 pulp fiction novels to them to read so that when they actually read the classics,

they'd appreciate them. Yes. And I just found that fascinating because it's like, oh, you're going to get a whole lot of reps in with garbage, but it's still going to be reps. And then when we actually get to Homer, you can be like, oh, thank fucking God. Oh, thank Christ. Right. So I just, I think that's interesting that you have, again, two prolific writers coming out of this enapolis academy

at within the same generation. Yes. I'm going to say, now I don't know if there was a turnover at that point, but I mean, 29 to 45. Yeah, 29 to 40. Yeah, okay. It's within a 20 year span. I know that they're they're very different people But yeah, so anyway, you wanted to get into the politics. Yeah, so so science fiction Obviously is is a forward-looking genre, right? Mm-hmm and It is a visionary genre. William Gibson wrote a wonderful essay about

science fiction, having the freedom that comes with being the court jester of literature. So you're not supposed to take it seriously on some level. Yeah. Yeah. And as such, you can be much more daring and challenging. And bring up ideas, bring up, bring up concepts, and say, I'm going to take this thing. Right. And I'm going to run with this thing. Yes. And I'm going to spin this thing out to one logical conclusion of it. Right. Right. And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna think about what knock-on effects does that have? Sure, yeah, yeah. And so all of speculative fiction, kind of builds on that kind of conceit. Now with that conceit, and I'm sorry, I keep just completely stepping on any riverview that and I apologize. Don't worry about that. It's because I was listening to a Heinlein drum line.

But. Good day, sir. But, so I just want to, so Heinlein's writing around this time, you've done another episode on Tolkien. Yes. Now these are two ends of the spectrum as far as technology goes when it comes to the worlds that they build. Yes.

I'm curious as to what it seems like both are on the margins and therefore can point to similar things about the human condition and they do it in very different ways, but at same time, there does seem to be a focus difference in both. One of them is very much intensely identifies as an Englishman as a central part of his whole worldview. Okay. Is his love of England and the country side around Oxford and all that.

Sure, sure. And then the other one is very, very American. Sure. Very, very motivated by his Americanness and his belief in the ideas of the American experiment. Okay. And so their emphasis are wildly different. They also live through two different wars.

They live through two different wars. Tolkien is easily a generation older. Yes. And Tolkien is rabidly anti-industrialism. Tolkien, Tolkien's whole worldview is, and then they had to figure out water power and building mills and they just fucked everything up. And so this is...

This is... His Tolkien's underlie. There's a deep, deep distrust of technology in the... Right. Highline was a believer in the utopian potential of... Right. ...techno much like his generation of American science fiction. Of course. Yes.

He was convinced that, you know, we were science fiction right. Of course, he was convinced that we were science and technology and good old American pluck. We're going to find solutions to all of the world's problems and with that combination of the right kind of gritty grit and character combined with, you know, Protestant work ethic, et cetera, et cetera, and scientific progress, we would wind up living in a better cleaner, you know. Okay, so I want to drill down on that difference

just a little bit more. Because I have someone who loves both so much in front of me, I really want to peel back a few layers of this on you. So Tolkien also is an Englishman living at the decline of his empire. Yes. And Heinlein is an American living at the ascendancy of his. Yes. That's an important thing and I think that'll probably play out.

But what I want to get back to is the worlds that they both created yes because you have a world without technology Mm-hmm, and it's it seems almost Horatian in it's some like Horace the poet in it's It's you know it values the buccaleic it values the idyllic And I'm wondering we it's stripping away a lot of things It almost feels like if you strip away all those things and maybe maybe this is getting toward my level And I'm wondering, it's stripping away a lot of things. It almost feels like if you strip away all those things, and maybe this is getting toward my love of different kinds of role-playing games.

If you strip away all those things, then you can get to a pure human condition. Okay, yeah. And if you go the other way with the technology, and I'm asking, if this, if this, yeah, if this cons, if you go the other way with technology and sci-fi, you are adding things on to get to, I almost want to say

a pure human condition, but it does, it almost seems like this is more aspect oriented, whereas this is more core oriented. Yeah, I think, I think the I think the way you say that I think works. I think it's important to note that Hyneline and, oh, dammit, one of my favorite other writers, Jerry Pornel and... Asmoth? No. Larry Niven.

Oh. Hyneline Niven, Pornel, all of those guys, um, were, were convinced, uh, that, that taking all of that stuff away, taking us back to a simpler condition was going to lead to anarchy and the tyranny of the strong. Uh, Larry, Larry Niven, history, proof. Yes, which,, history proof. Yes, which history proofs. Larry Niven actually wrote a really remarkable fun short story that has to do with the failure of a monitoring system.

There's the, he came up with the idea of, at some point in his future history, the freeway system becomes obsolete. And in Los Angeles, they turn the freeways into parks. They turn them into huge green belts. Oh, neat. And in this short story, there's a system of semi-autonomous drones that move around and watch everybody.

So he predicted Hollywood. Yeah, he did, sort of. Yeah. But without thinking about many of the ramifications, and I he wrote this in in the 40s of the 50s Uh, but so there these little anti-gravity hover drone things floating around and the thing is they're they're semi-autonomous and and they Communicate with it. They don't send visual to any to each other. Okay, because his imagination wasn't quite big enough to understand the idea of the internet. Right. Right.

It's too far away. But they are constantly in communication with each other. So one of them sees something going wrong and can send a signal in summon 5 or 6 of them. Okay. And one of the things is in these parks, it is idyllic anarchy. You, the laws about individual behavior don't apply with the exception that if you do anything violent or threatening toward anybody else, one of these drones is gonna stun you and knock you

unconscious. Okay. And, and allow whoever you're bothering to get away and do whatever. Well, some, you know, wise and hymer says, I,er says, I was, you know, George Orwell, you know, right, all the time. And partly out of a, an anarchist extreme, partly out of just, I want to see what I can do with this thing. He winds up disabling one of them. Okay, he gets a

bunch of kids to, he pays a bunch of kids to catch one of them and then he's tinkering with it. Uh-huh. He shuts it down. Well, somehow in a way that the story doesn't explain because it's not really important to the plot. Because science, right. Um, the one getting shut down, shuts all of them down. Oh, this is, this is the plot behind Independence Day, yeah.

I mean, you kinda, yeah. Yeah, and, yeah, and, and and and when that happens, uh-huh, then the park turns into Lord of the flies Right, right because there isn't anybody Wow, and he's in LA writing this in the 40s. Yeah, I Just I would point out how fucked up the police department was in LA in the 40s Yeah, and the belief that if the police went away Yeah, wow, well, it is well known was in LA in the 40s. And the belief that if the police went away. Yeah. Well, it is well known in literary science fiction circles, people who go to science fiction cons for years and years

and years, Niven pernell, Heinlein, while he was alive, now all these guys are dead. But, well, actually, it could be wrong. Niven might not be. But anyway. No, Niven died in the 80s, because I remember they did a mash retrospective and Ferretface was, I think, the second one to die right after. Right.

Yes. Good job. Thank you. So, but anyway, Niven, Portnell, and a cadre of other writers were right of center. Okay, they were conservatives. They were believers in. 40s conservatives, 50s conservatives. 40s, 50s conservatives.

So essentially communists now. Well, yeah, they'd be labeled that way. Yes. Did I? I got it. Okay, I'd run up communists. Maybe not communist, but they would be labeled as cucks for me. Yeah, I just I got so given my Dalliances with calling things out. Yeah, I got an email today or yesterday from somebody at my work

I don't respond to work emails from outsiders. So feel free to keep sending them people but You'll just wind up on the podcast. Yeah, pretty much. You just get to wind up talking about it like this. So guy, he basically, he's like, hey, you Communist cocksucker and he goes on and on. And it occurred to me that in his world, the objectionable part about me is that I'm a Communist cocksucker. In which case, I was started like wondering like, well, would he be okay with a fascist

cocksucker? Or is he more of like a peronist coxucker? No, no, no, no, no, stop. Stop, stop, stop. In his worldview, fascists, peronists, they pitch, they don't catch. No, but his objection didn't seem to be the coxuckiness. It was the Communist part, because that's the part that kept, was the through line. So I- He kept bringing up that.

Yeah, so you could be a coxucker, that's fine. I think the coxucker part was intended to just be a I bring it up that. Yeah, so you could be a copsector that's fine. I think the copsector part was intended to just be, you know, a throw away in a saw. Yeah, clearly, you know, he thinks, you know, the thing that gets me though is like, okay, the issue that you brought up was institutional racism.

Yeah. And somehow that makes you a communist. The biggest thing I want all of your critics, like I actually want to go to one of their meetings. Like, whenever it is they get together and share their crazy shit nut bag, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. I want to just stand up and front and go,

okay, I want to give you all a primer on what these words fucking mean. Yeah, I teach seventh grade. Here we go. I teach seventh grade world history. I'm qualified to teach government and political science to high schoolers. Right. Clearly, none of you were paying attention.

So let's get into this. Yeah. Communism does not mean, is you can have a racial, superiorist, supremacist communists, you can do that. You can be harder. I would argue. Yeah. Okay.

It would be harder, but you just say in our communist utopia, we don't have. These people. These people. Okay, okay. I could see that. It's a exclusionary supremacist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

But you could do it. Yeah. The two communism is not innately tied to racial equality. It is tied to an idea of economic distribution. Okay, okay, okay. All right, it is tied to a system of, you know, sharing of resources. Okay.

It doesn't have anything at all to do with the fucked up race politics of our country. Now, now, now, generally speaking, leftists are gonna be people who are pushing for racial justice, racial equality because of intersectionalism and the fact that the white supremacist capitalist system that we have now. Don't forget imperialists because that's where I think you're gonna run into trouble with saying communism doesn't have any interest in the racial stuff because

it's inherently anti-imperialist and imperialism is absolutely based on a racial system. Yes. Yeah. So therefore, by that exception, but yes, okay. By the transitive property. Yes, you are correct. But you get, you get my point. I do. I do. I want to, I would just say, okay, no look. Communism is an economic system. Right, right. And to the extent it's political, it's because politics is how we decide how we're going to run our fucking economy. Sure. Okay, capitalism, capitalism doesn't actually have some level of innate virtue tied to freedom,

individual, no. The only thing, the only thing capitalism says is, if you have money, you can take that money and put it into a project and make more money. Right, right. And Adam Smith, and this is the reason, and this is the reason I don't call myself a socialist, Adam Smith, the father of capitalism,

the one that like every iron ran, you know, jack-off fanboy, you know, so just look at Adam Smith. You haven't read Adam Smith. I fucking have read Adam Smith. He's not saying what you think he's fucking saying. True. Adam Smith just said,

you as an individual are going to be more efficient, more effective and probably more successful if you focus on doing this one thing that you are good at. Right. Specialization of labor. You know, and important point, Adam Smith never said a god damn word about taxes being evil. No, in fact, he talked about that the invisible hand being a regulatory bodies. Yeah. And and so, you know, I, I, yeah, I could, I could get it. So Highline was right. I was calling you calling you a communist. Yeah. Like that's one of the, and like it's happened to you so many times the

last couple of weeks that every time that comes up, I just want to go on a rant about. No, what have you sent me? No, sent me a letter. You could certainly go on a road trip. Yeah. So, yeah. Every time I think about the woman who sent it, I get such a kick out of it because there's a song called Downtown, sung by Mrs. Miller.

Oh, yeah. And if you type in Downtown Mrs. Miller, it's just most off key song. And I just imagine that voice when reading. Yeah, yeah. No, I can see that. Okay. Okay, back to highlight. Your boys were right of center.

They were right of center. Yeah. They were Eisenhower Republicans. Sure. And as time went on and we got into like the Reagan years, they were, you know, Ra Ra, right. They were cold warriors. They were pulled right. Yeah. They were pulled right along with, you know, the movement. Yeah. Was it work? Yeah. And what I think is important to keep in mind is they were cold warriors. Mm-hmm. Just like JFK. Yeah, just, yeah, essentially, yes. Yeah.

And so in their work, as opposed to CJ Cherry or other other science fiction authors, and McCaffrey. Other. This is why I get a kick out of the fact where you go off on how well read I am. Like, I heard one of those names once. I don't read shit about this thing. Well, no, so here's the deal.

This is episode one of, I'm educating you about science fiction. Yeah, true. Because the next thing I have in the pipeline is, I'm just, I'm gonna fucking do Dune. Sweet, like, sweet. And it's just gonna be okay, look. Yeah.

Here's Dune. Here it is, yeah. So anyway, so there's this, this right of center faction of science fiction. I was definitely in that camp. There's the left of center wing of science fiction. Other authors are in that camp. There's the left of center wing of science fiction, other authors are in that camp. And this was all happening in a time when the deep, deep, deep, ugly divisions that

we have right now weren't a thing. Social mores were also somewhat different. So Asimov, for example, was kind of tacitly allowed to be a dirty old man and get away with doing problematic shit at conventions, because, well, you know, that's Isaac. And the entire genre is now having a long overdue conversation about, okay, no, that was not okay. Right.

These things are bad boys and girls. We shouldn't be doing this, and female authors should not have to put up with this shit in order to socialize and hang in these circles where publishing decisions get made and all this stuff happens. So understand, as I talk about these things, I don't want to try to put some kind of rose colored glasses

over that mirror I was going on. You're not doing a hagiography of that. Yeah, no, no. And so that's kind of the context for understanding what Highline did with the novel. OK. OK. And we're going to talk about the novel

before we get anywhere near Verhoeven in the movie. Sure. Just chronology. And I think it get anywhere near Verhoeven in the movie. Sure. Just chronology and I think it's a more constructive way to have the conversation. That's how we did Batman. Yeah, so, so, Highline was a graduate of the Naval Academy. It was a veteran of World War II.

He had not been actively in the Navy. Okay. He was a civilian contractor during the war. Prior to the war, he'd been a technical officer. He'd done communications work at sea. He was a line officer in the Navy. What is a line officer? Line officer is supposed to staff officer. Line officer is somebody who is actually out in a position where they could potentially get shot at. So that's officer or somebody in the support headquarters kind of. Oh, okay, okay.

And so he was, he was a board of ship, aircraft carrier. Oh wow. I got to look at which one. But anyway, he served in the Navy. Okay. That was, that was a very centrally shaping part of his worldview. And Starship Troopers is unabashedly a pro-military, loudly pro-military work. And it is clearly a product of the Cold War. The Iraq Nids, Lugs, are a hive mind centrally controlled army of cold faceless murder machines deployed in waves. One after the other after the other

after the other, they're not actually even given any weapons because of course in Starship Troopers, the bugs don't need them. Right. But what does this sound like? Remember, this is written in 59. Well, it sounds like. It's certainly controlled by the attacks, but huge numbers of snow. Yeah, it sounds like two things. It sounds like, by the way, who's on the USS Lexington.

Thank you. Sure. Which makes sense, because it's one of the first aircraft carriers. So, but what do you call it? It sounds like one of two things. One, it sounds like it's informed by perhaps knowledge of how the Russian infantry worked on the Eastern Front.

Also though, America had just gotten out of Korea. And that's China. And that's just. Winner winner, chicken dinner. Nice. Yes. So me clearly informed by Western perception of both the Soviets and more, more immediately. Right.

The Chinese and the North Koreans. Communist, Communist Chinese and the North Koreans. Um, and, and to be fair, it's a generalization and he's painting with a very broad brush, but that saves time. Sure. As we know from a wise man. And it's not exactly wrongly portrayed as a reader of military fiction.

And darn it, I can't remember the title of the book, but a US military, a retired US military officer, sometime in the mid to late 80s, actually wrote a speculative fiction, it wasn't science fiction, it was just a what if story, of what actually happens if the Russians try to go over the Foldegap.

Okay. And for those in our listening audience who aren't aware of these terms, the Foldegap was basically the one place that NATO knew that if the Soviets were actually going to run headlong into Western Europe, the Foldegap was the geographical bottleneck, they were going to be coming through.

And we knew we had their army manuals. They had ours. They had FM100-1. They knew what our doctrine was and they specifically designed weapon systems to deal with our military doctrine. In the same way, we designed stuff to deal with theirs. We knew that we were going to be dealing with a, I want to say, five to three numerical problem. They were going to outnumber us. Yeah, they had more than, yeah. We used five to three in terms of armor.

And so every, every armor system that NATO developed from the 1960s until the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union was built around that idea. The Apache attack helicopter with all of those anti- was built around that idea. The Apache attack helicopter with all of those anti-tank missiles, was the Hellfire missile system, was specifically designed to be the weapon

that was going to be, we're gonna put a cloud of these up in the sky and we're gonna blow up, one of these helicopters is gonna need to blow up, it doesn't tank. Wow. And the A10 warthog. guy and we're gonna blow up one of these helicopters is gonna need to blow up a dozen tanks. Wow. And the A10 warthog was specifically designed for, okay, no look, we're going to need to pop these things like pimples. Yeah, you can say just force holes through the armor. And so because we knew how their doctrine worked,

this officer who right now I can't remember his name, and I can't remember the title of the novel, but it was a fascinating thought exercise when he actually got into the head of a fictional Soviet army officer, armor officer. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And the way their doctrine worked,

one of the central things that happens in the novel is they achieve a breakthrough. And this company commander with his eight tanks or however many it was, busts through allied lines, winds up behind allied lines. And now to our doctrine, that was kid in a candy store time. That was okay. No, now you run around blowing shit up Like you as the commander on the field right you're the guy go do it right

Soviet doctrine was we don't know what to do If if you can't hear from central command, okay, there's there's this there's this there's moment of, we're winning the fuck do I do? Right, next step please. Yeah. Because everything in their doctrine was built around the idea of centralized control. Huh. And so this picture of what the bugs were as this allegory for Soviets. Right.

And they were larger than soldiers, too, so they were clearly the armor division. Yeah. Yeah. And so it is definitely a reaction to what we knew and surmised, I mean in 59, what we do and what we surmised about what this might look like. Funny thing though, the book is a lot more than that all at once. It's also a post-apocalypse novel. So we had an apocalypse and then we rebuilt.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the society that Johnny Rico and all of his friends are living in is one that was built in the wake of a nuclear exchange, which ultimumeration or two previously. Okay, and this is 59. Yeah. I'm just thinking about Gene Roddenberry. Yes. And what he might have had access to, what he might have read and reading, because when you get to Star Trek, now Roddenberry wrote the character, Nunean Singh.

He did. And Eugenics Wars and all that, was a part of that backstory. I don't know if he was the only writer on that or if there was a writer's room that they probably massaged it back and forth, but it occurs to me that Star Trek is a post-apocalyptic as well. Yeah.

Because we had to get real low before we could actually get to the utopia. Yeah. Okay. What existed previously? For Roddenberry, I think it's the kind of liberal progressive idea of... Yeah, it's the... We need to break down. Yeah. Get rid of religion. Get rid of the rot, get rid of the stuff that's we need to break down.

Get rid of religion, get rid of the rot, get rid of the stuff that's in the way. And then we can achieve all these dizzying heights. Yeah, and basically, it makes me wonder if John Lennon didn't just watch Star Trek and write Imagine. Could be. Yeah. You never know. Yeah.

So the novel is also a building's Roman. Say it again. Buildings Roman. Coming of age novel. Okay. Yeah. Johnny Rico changes over the course of the novel from being a flat C student for a privileged family who doesn't want to get involved in politics to a dedicated patriotic, highly competent

commander of men on the battlefield. doesn't want to get involved in politics to a dedicated patriotic highly competent commander of men on the battlefield. Wow, that's like what George W. Bush wishes. Yeah, kind of. Oh, that's interesting right there. That's who? Because 97 and then four years later. Yeah.

Yeah. He actually, he read a lot, believe it or not, like people like come down on him for being an idiot. And frankly, I think there's some ableism going on there. But also, he is also amongst other things. Yeah. But, but he was kind of a prolific reader. Oh, yeah. And I wonder if he didn't, because I mean, he loved red dawn as a movie too.

Yeah, well, yeah. You know, but, uh, come on. Yeah. He's a Republican. Yeah, yeah. Red dawn was the height of the, I mean, we talk about high, but come on. Yeah, he's a Republican. Yeah, I was the height of the I mean we talked about high high water mark Yes of the Cold War. Yeah, no, of course, of course he loved it. Sure you kidding had all the all the muchismo Oh, yeah, all the you know set in Iowa. Yeah, you know, of course I'm persecuted Americanism. Yeah American exceptionalism I mean, oh yeah, no of course. Yeah. Yeah, red meat. Yeah red dawn red meat.

So so Rico Mm-hmm is this I mean at the beginning of the sorry What I just I got an image of a before and after so red dawn knots after. So red dawn knots. I just well, Wolverines. And then red dawn, Rickles. Oh, sure. This guy is going to come over here and shoot me now. It's too. Yeah, he and his Russian friend. Okay, great. Just look at him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Andy.

I need another bullet for my AK Andy. Or just... Red Don Ho, you know? Tiny bullets. Tiny bullets, yeah we went to say place in that one. Um, so, but it is... The novel is clearly building on all of the juveniles that he'd written previously because the fact that it is this coming of age story. So in some ways it's him coming of age in his, in his, what's it called, not your discography? It's Uvra. Yeah, it's Uvra, because you just said it was the last of his young adult stuff.

Yeah, or it's the first of what we would say is not young adult. Right, so and so, his writing is going through the same metamorphosis that Johnny Rico is, okay? Yes, or his subject matter in his thought processes. Because after this, going into the 60s, going into the 70s, he got weird. I'll get into it. Yeah, yeah. So the get into it. Yeah.

So, the movie is not the movie. The novel is a whole bunch of things kind of all at once. Okay. It is also at its core, a very big part of it is a thought experiment and a political philosophy statement. Okay. What it isn't, and I'm gonna get into kind of what the statement is supposed to be,

but what it isn't, what it wasn't meant to be. Okay. And I phrased that that way, because it's an important distinction. What it was not meant to be was a pay-and-to-fascism. Well, and I would point out that what is, one is, one of the- Authorial intent don't mean shit. Yeah, no. I

know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which was why you're you're threatening that you know, yeah, I need to that way. His intent was not for it to be a fascist novel. Highline participated in socialist politics in California, back in the early 30s, he was part of the epic movement and poverty in California. Did he work with Steinberg? Or no, what's his name? Steinbeck. Yeah.

Yeah, okay. That's what I figured. Steinbeck featured a socialist movement in the story of the jokes coming to California. Grapes of wrath. Yeah, no, the other, the other, the other, up to in Sinclair, is also involved. Yeah. Yeah, no, the other the other the other opt-in stinclair. Oh, yes also involved. Yeah Highline repeatedly deplored dictatorial regimes in his writing. Mm-hmm both in his fiction and he wrote reams of essays. Oh, okay Reams of essays and and he deplored any kind of authoritarian top-down

dictatorial kind of government. He was he was deeply anti-authoritarian. He had worked as a civilian engineering consultant for the Navy during World War II. Right. And he wrote and spoke often about the importance of citizen participation in representative government. Okay. Well, that having watched the movie, I can hear the echoes of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. You need to show up, you need to vote.

Mm-hmm. The vote doesn't work without it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's regularly quoted as a libertarian in his later years. Pro-free love, pro-rad radical free speech, pro bodily autonomy, hippie, hippie dip slash dirty old man. So yeah, right of center. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, but,

yeah, you know, not tanky right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, like individual, white, white edge lord right, but not tanky edge lord right. Right, right, right. Yeah. And not woman should be subservient, but I'm gonna use this idea to get to fill them up. Oh yeah, no, I'm gonna, yeah. I'm still entitled to their bodies, but they're not subservient to me.

Yeah, and I'm gonna, and, and, you know, I'm the product of of you know, a generation where those sexist ideas are just kind of that's the one where I swim in, but you know, I am gonna talk about how will women get horny too? Like they should be a lot of feel me up too, right? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody has fun. I could think the worst things to do. Yeah, I mean, if one bothered me like that, it wouldn't bother me like that. Yeah, everybody has fun. I can think of worse things to do. I mean, if one bothered me like that, it wouldn't bother me like that. Yeah, it's that kind of.

Yes, yes, basically. Yes. So he's a Roddenberry leftist. He's a, well, he's a Roddenberry rightist. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. And in his later works,

the one that immediately jumps to mind as an example of this is another big philosophical. I'm going to include rants for multiple characters, for multiple angles about religion and bodily autonomy and all this kind of stuff is stranger in a strange land. Oh, he wrote that? Oh, yeah. Okay. I only know the phrase, but I know that it was a title of a book for a story. Yeah, and it got picked up by the hippie movement.

Okay, that's right. Can you rock it? Became a phrase in the popular culture, and that's taken from John Valentine Smith, the Martian, in air quotes, the, the human who came back from Mars, okay, uh, who learned that phrase from the Martian Martians to Groc means to absorb something in its fullness. Wow. To make it, to make it part of yourself, not merely to understand it,, what to take it into your social sense. To internalize and integrate.

To fully internalize it. So, wow. Okay. And I grok. Now, okay, at that same time, as people are saying, can you grok it? They're also doing graffiti of Frodo lives. Yes. I just think it's interesting how you got these two cannons,

these two, I don't... Two different threads of speculative fiction going on kind of at the same time. Yeah. And a lot of the stuff that Heinlein was writing was also Boomer Katnip, because in Stranger and Stranger Land, he was saying he was totally in favor of polyamory. He didn't have the word polyamory. But the religious group movement, cult, whatever you wanna call it,

did his main character, Founds, is polyamory. Everybody in the community is polyamorous within the community. And they have gotten to a place where they're all working to get to a place where they've gotten past jealousy and whatever. Right. Possession and attachment. Yeah, possession and all that kind of stuff, which is also very eastern philosophy.

It is. It is. And so, but it's actually more accurately Eastern philosophy than Lucas and the Jedi, because there's also compassion and universal love involved in it, which is weird for me to be saying that when I'm talking about somebody who is very clearly right of center, uh-huh. You know, and many of his quotes are very, very heavy-handed about individual responsibility, individual competence.

There's a meme that shows up all the time about a human being should be able to, and there's a laundry list of stuff, planning, invasion, butcher, hog, deliver a baby. There's this big long list. Uh-huh. And like, you need to be prepared to take care of yourself was, you know, but by the same token at the same time in stranger to strange land and in sail beyond to

sail beyond the sunset and, and a whole host of other works of his, I keep coming back to stranger to strange land because it's the one I've read more than once. Okay. But in a whole bunch of these later works, that's still there. Uh-huh. But that's moved into the background where he's talking about these other ideas like he gets into the idea of one of his main characters becomes a time traveler and runs into himself. And if his time travel it's a time travel. grandfather paradox basically he can't he plays with grandfather paradox one of the things that that he brings up is well,

okay, if I travel forward in time, because I don't want to travel back around time because yeah, I don't want to I don't want to this conversation can't be about me running into like 15 year old me. But if I run into me when I'm a consenting adult, and we get down, is that homosexuality or is it just masturbation? Oh, I like it. Like, like, when I say dirty old man, this is what I'm talking about, is, you know. Yeah. But I guess if there's peen to theane penetration, then you could make the argument for homosexuality. Right, but if you're just shoving your thumb up there,

then you could have done that on your own anyway. So therefore, it's just masturbating. So, okay, so we get down to that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that works. Yeah, all right, we've done it. That's good. So, but I'm trying to give you an idea of where on the right of center, you-huh, you know kind of

Ideology we're talking about him him landing This this is not a guy who's like, you know In his in his day-to-day life and in the rest of his writing. This is not somebody who's in favor of You know state before family, right? He's state before everything. He seems audacity a forever kind of you know, state before family. Right. He's state before everything. He seems audacity forever kind of, you know. Yeah, if you do the quadrant, it seems like he is much closer to libertarian end of right, but he's actually an honest libertarian, not a libertarian who's like,

well, someday that could be my boot on someone's neck. He's not an a wanna be imperialist masking as a libertarian. He's actually closer to, you know, you, I don't really dig on the horseshoe theory much, but I do notice that like libertarians and anarchists, they, they've got some common ground on some stuff. Yeah. And they probably both garden really well.

You know. Yeah. Well, honest libertarians. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're both probably, they probably both grow really good weed. Yes, yes.

And they both are not hating the poor. Yeah. And yeah, they don't want to punish anyone. They don't want to punish anybody, yeah. So that's where he's coming from. Highland very clearly, as did other writers in his crew, very clearly, viewed the USSR as a totalitarian state. Easy to do with the literature at the time.

Yeah. Yeah. He made the point repeatedly in his book in Starship Troopers that the troopers were all there by choice. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And the bugs were there because the brain bugs controlled them. Okay, yeah. Okay. And demolition made the same argument about the powers of pain when Mr. Fuji turned on demolition and some are in survivor series in 1988, 89.

So, okay, 88, so we're talking about. 89. And of Reagan beginning of Bush 1. Yeah, yeah, 89. And so, okay, 88. So we're talking about end of Reagan beginning of Bush one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And demolition was like, hey, you know, and I remember as a WWF magazine, and demolition said, you know, we think for ourselves, just like the Americans in World War II, whereas, you know, the powers of pain, warlord, and barbarian, they only do what Fuji tells them. Wow. Yeah. That manages to be height of the Cold War, you know, the Soviets are a, you know, faceless monolith with only the people who are top making any decisions, combined with yellow fever fear of the Japanese. Yeah. I mean, Mr. Fuji's whole character is that. Yeah. Well, yeah. No, no. Yeah. It's what I'm saying. I mean,

literally when you sneak attack someone, they call it a Pearl Harbor job. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah. So the government in Starship Troopers is a representative government. Now it's one with a limited franchise because the book is a riff on political philosophy rooted in the idea that the vote is important enough

that one needs to earn it. Now, it's not made very clear in the book. Okay. Years later, talking about the book, Heinlein pointed out that 95% of people with the franchise earned the franchise through non-military government service. Okay. So the military is just one type of service. One way to do it.

Okay. Now in the book, because he was writing the book at the height of the Cold War, because the whole thing was motivated by, we can't stop the nuclear test. Yeah, because the Soviets are military. Yeah. And the attitude, and I can actually,

I think it's a failure that that doesn't get explicitly mentioned anywhere in the book. I am going to say that's that's strike one for online in the book. And the characters in the book, one one critic of his work pointed out that the characters in the book, the moment Johnny Rico goes home and tells his father, well, you know, I want to do my thing as a citizen. I want to write a franchise. Right. His father, who does not have the vote, has not done any kind of government service, is a successful

businessman and does not see you resist. Doesn't care for it. Yeah. Doesn't care about getting into politics. You know, know tells the Sun that's a shitty career idea. There's not a war on right now You're you're never gonna get anywhere. Oh wow So the assumption of people in universe Uh-huh A lot of people in universe in the book is the way to get the franchise is military service sure

There's another point in the book where Rico and a bunch of his buddies on a pass from basic training wind up getting ambushed by a group of merchant marine sailors in an alleyway. Okay. And two things happen in that. Number one, he makes a remark about, yeah, these guys, you know, we always run into trouble with these guys as soldiers whenever we go into town,

we run into trouble with these guys because they resent the fact that our service gets us the vote. The franchise, there's doesn't. There's doesn't. So, you know, was Highline kind of cleaning up his own record all those years later when he said this or like had his opinion mature right right you know hard to tell you know yeah kind of hard to tell the other thing that happens in that in that fight sequence because the whole book is written first person oh okay from the point of view of Johnny Rico and Rico's remark is you know after you've trained to kill a man with your bare hands, getting a fight in an alley is actually a lot harder when you're not, when you're trying not to kill somebody. Which I just want to point out, he's kind of right about

uh, from everything I've heard from, because I haven't studied, you know, hand-to-hand martial arts. You know, everything I do with a sword is, no, no, no, this is the murder how. Right. You know, yeah, yeah. But but in in like I keto, for example, it's a it's a soft form, but the very first tactic they teach you is if you're being attacked by more than one guy, kill find a way to slam the first one's head into the pavement. Right. You know, so you can then focus on the other ones. Yeah. You know, rip the second guy's arm off, you know, so like if you don't want to go full throttle, there's actually more, more effort involved. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I, I remember just, you know, martial arts type of remembrance was when it came to certain types, the one that I learned was a lot of joint locking.

And the emphasis became, break the elbow. Because you break the elbow and they can still walk home. So you're being kind. But if your arm has turned 90 degrees the wrong way, you're gonna stop for a second and think about your next thing. You're going to think about your life choices. Yeah. You're going to contemplate how did I wind up here? But when it was, what do you do if you get attacked by two people?

It was try to get them to be in a line with each other, so only one at a time. And then go straight for the groin and then rip the other ones ear off. And that was yeah, yeah, and that was my seafood's wife. Oh shit. Yeah, she was like, like, and we all had like a running joke of like, you know, if, if, because there's our seafood, there was our, our Seemo, that was her, and then there was also our C.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G.G. Ireland. Good to see you. But if somebody were to spit on all three of them, what would happen? And it was before the spit left the dude's mouth, our seafoods older training brother, would have broken several bones on the guy. And his friend who was supposed to drive him to the hospital. Seifu would have just been like, well, that's kind of warm. Do you mind not doing that? And Seemal would have killed him, then gone through his wallet,

found all the people he was related to, and burned them to death, too. Wow. Yeah. So when she was teaching us, she's like, okay, so you rip off the ear, and this is if you're facing more than one person, you rip off the ear because that's a lot of blood

and a lot of screaming. And this way you can get away, you know. So yeah, it's nice to see that their advice worked this way into a Heinlein book. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah, it's nice to see that their advice Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much so So so the book is a it's a it's a cold warrior manifesto clearly it is every ounce a cold warrior manifesto with then this additional idea thrown in about additional idea thrown in about individual, the responsibility of an individual citizen, if you wanna be a participant in democracy,

you have to have skin in the game. You have to have given something. Right. And the thing with that is, by itself, that's an idea that we can all look at and go, okay, I see the logic to that. I see the logic behind that. Now, the problem from there is that that is,

the very beginning of a very steep slippery slope. Yes. And the thing is, a lot of his readers, a lot of his critics have looked at that and they have made the assumption that he wasn't like just kind of reaching over the edge and setting his foot down. They see the story as being him just leaping off a cliff into the abyss of absolute militarism, absolute fascism, absolute imperialism. And I think it is not a huge leap that you have to make. Right. And again, as we've always said repeatedly, a thrill intent means dick. Yeah.

But it's pretty clear that, you know, Highline, his own life experience, that's not what he's trying to say. Right, right. That isn't what he's trying to do. Do you think he was of the mind of like, I get how you got there, but that's only one possibility

that I wanted to open it up to all of these. His own statements about it range, I think it depended on what time of year and like him and Kyle's he'd had, depending on, you know, and like, whether his wife was on his back about something, you know, like his, his, his responses vary from that kind of thoughtful, well, okay, no look what I was trying to do was the thought experiment, right, to just a full-throated no, I'm not a fascist,

fuck you for calling me a fascist, no, kind of thing. Kind of depends on how many times you get asked in the day, too. Yeah, well yeah. Yeah, and how aggressive somebody's being about. Right. Because when, when, you know, literary people got in this face about, you know, you, you know, fascist, fuck, you'd be like, I fought the fascists. Right, right, right. Like, forgot, like, you see how old I am?

Right. Like, no. Right, right. That word means shit. And I'm not one of them. With, you know, and so with, with, with all of that said, and with everything I've said about, you know, kind of trying to, trying to, trying to thread that, the book is not a satire. OK.

And it is a full-throated defense of militarism, because it's a cold war. Set in the cold war. Yeah. You know, it is the granddaddy of military science fiction as we know it today. Without high-line starship troopers, we would not get hammer slammers or the forever war or fuck for that matter. We wouldn't get halo.

Oh, okay. Okay. You know, all or anything by John Ringo. John Ringo, no. But who also is right of center, far, far right of center. But anyway, it's very heavily colored by his own life experiences as a naval officer. Mm-hmm.

And so there is a very clear bias that soldiers with patriotic heroes, more patriotic than anybody who doesn't serve. As someone who went to an academy. And yeah, that's definitely there. There's an awful lot there to unpack. Sure. And as we've just, as I have in my notes, as we've established before, authorial intent means jack-in shit. So it shouldn't be at all surprising that when Paul Verhoeven got ahold of the work,

shit went fascist. I look forward to hearing about that. Yeah, and I think we're at a point having gotten to here. Yeah. This is a good place to draw the curtain for now and we can come back in our next episode I like it talk about the movie talk about what the movie was reacting to This is a whole lot of other shit. Yeah

Because we're talking about 59 to 97 right so there's almost 40 years of history between them There's also Paul Verhoeven being Paul Verhoeven. Anyway, we'll get into the episode. But what is your takeaway at this point before we fade to black? Sure. Well, a couple things come to mind. First of all, Heinlein not much on the titles,

cleverness. Starship troopers seemed like a silly title to me when I went and saw it in the theater and I had no idea it was based on a book. Okay. And have space suit. A lot of people didn't. We'll travel. Yeah. You know, have space suit. We'll travel is also a silly. But it's very much a product of its time. So, another takeaway. Starman Jones is another one. Oh, good Lord.

Oh, well, look at the era in which it was being written in two years. Yeah. It's the genre as a whole, but where we go. It's a baby, you know. You know, you gotta get the shitty titles out of the way before you get to level ones. That's where you get to get a little bit more artful, yeah. So I guess one of my takeaways is, I, it's funny, talking about this in the early parts,

I really want us to kind of do a watch along of the Deep Space Nine episode where Cisco has a fever and he imagines that he is Benny, the social, the, the, the, God. I don't know if I want to put myself through that. It's harrowing, but it's beautiful. Oh, yeah, I know it's one of his through that. It's harrowing, but it's beautiful. Yeah. It's one of his best performances.

It really is. Oh my God. But I don't know necessarily that it's good for this show. I just kind of want to go. Yeah, well, yeah, it's excuse me to go do that. Yeah. But so just, I'm curious as to, because when you talked about

God, what's the guy's name that wrote Conan? Robert E. Howard. Thank you. For some reason, I kept confusing Highline with Howard, so when you're like, yeah, I'm gonna do Highline, I'm like, we did Highline. You know, both start with age. Right. They're both two syllables like, yeah. Yeah, no, they both, they both come from an era of different social mores. Yeah, but but I'm What was I gonna say about that We wind just a bit there the massive, you know, white chromosome Oh, no, no, because I remember no nothing to do with that actually more how he made his money because I remember Howard wrote for

magazines yeah, pulps. Yeah, and I landed too. Oh, he did. Okay, but this wasn't that. This phase, this was not that. Okay. At this phase of the development of the genre, we're 20 years after Howard. Right. And so the very, very earliest Polps, after Howard. Right. And so the very very earliest pulps, many of them have died off gone away. There were new magazines coming out. So there were, there was a whole whole plethora of anthology magazines that was descended from the pulps. Right. That were a thing and Heinlein and Port-Nellin Niven and all those guys. They would write for that. They wrote for that. Okay. a lot. I was curious about that

Yeah, and Highline was very very prolific With short stories. Okay, multiple collections of the short stories out there And I'm a huge fan like I'm a fan of Starship Troopers. Mm-hmm. The book less so the movie. Mm-hmm I'm a fan of a bunch of his novels. Uh-huh. I am a fan of Starship Troopers. Mm-hmm. The book less so the movie. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm a fan of a bunch of his novels. Uh-huh. I am a huge fan of his short stories. Okay. Because he was very, very good at finding an idea and building a neat little story around it

with wit and character. Mm-hmm. And, and yeah, uh, Just get in, get out, boy. Yeah and and yeah just get in get out bull yeah get get in get out and and leave leave a lasting emotional impression we also walk dogs and green hills of earth are are okay to me to of the best science fiction short stories anybody has ever written. Okay. And I will fucking fight people over this. Like, like, you can, you can say there are others that are better and okay with it. But if you try to tell me those two are not master works. Okay. Okay. I'm going to be, I'll be very angry. So anyway, did Heinlein write any episodes of like outer limits or no? Okay. He did not do any TV work.

That's what I was curious about. No. So yeah, I guess my takeaway is just more questions about his prolifici. So thank you for answering those. I did want to drill just a little bit deeper into you said that it was a, I forget the word you used, but. Buildings Roman.

No, no, no. No. No, no, no. The thing about the fact that it's very pro militarism. Yes. Is it that it's pro militarism or that's simply the backdrop of the thought experiment he was running? My own opinion, the thing is, it's, we can't get inside his head. And his commentary on it might not, you know,

it might be self-serving, it might not. Right, yes. Not necessarily a reliable narrator. Yeah, I'm going to say it comes across as pro militarism because that's the society that he built. And within that structure, that's what it is. There might also have been some attempts on his part to say some things in the mouths of characters that are supposed to kind of be ironic. Oh, okay. And he wasn't always very good about irony. Irony doesn't travel across time either.

Yeah, and irony doesn't, yeah, it's tricky. It's a very tricky thing. So there's that possibility. My own opinion on it is he is very much pro, the institution of the military is critically important for the defense of a free state. And soldiers, and I think he did have a very strong pro soldier bias. Okay.

That works. Yeah. So I think that's okay. Just because when you said that 95% of the population had other ways of getting the franchise. Yeah. That starkness to it made me just kind of pause for a second. Like clearly we're focusing on this 5%, but the other 95% can do it in a different way.

Why did this 5% choose this? Why is it only this 5% and on and on? So I wanted to know what his value placed on that. But thank you. All right. Cool. Well, give us something to recommend something to us. Recommend us a short story that will really be

the most kind line. I'm going to be the anthology. Oh, OK. The Green Hills of Earth. OK. Green Hills of Earth. If you can find that short story collection, if I'm remembering correctly, that obviously,

the Green Hills of Earth is the title story in anthology. And I believe that one also includes, we also walk dogs, which, to me is one of his best exercises in the way he was able to draw pen sketches of characters very rapidly and make them entertaining sympathetic to different degrees and yeah and they all spoke with different voices and you could clearly tell who each one of them was in a very short number of lines of text. Okay, cool. So how about you? What have you got? You know know, as far as you mentioned anthologies,

so I'm gonna actually recommend an anthology that I really like from Star Wars. Tell us some job as palace? No, actually, although that's a fun one. I enjoyed that one a great deal. Yeah, I would have recommended Tales of the Bounty Hunters, except for the Bossk story kind of sucked. Okay. But actually, no, it's Tales from the New hunters except for the boss story kind of sucked. Okay.

But actually, no, it's Tales from the New Republic. Okay. So, which was, I think they just did a collection from the Star Wars Insider magazine. Okay. And there's also Tales from the Empire, so you just take your pick, it doesn't really matter. Oh, yeah, all right. But just such fun anthologies in there. Oh, yeah.

You know, you get to, what I loved about it is that it's a great big universe. Yeah. And here are people you've never heard of. Yeah. See, Job as Palace was cool and the tales from the Cantina was cool, but those were characters I'd seen. Yeah. So it was like, okay, cool.

Let me trace this back. And it was either a good story or a bad story, but the tales from the Empire and tales from the New Republic, characters and organizations you'd never heard of. And I liked that a lot. So I'm going to say good at that. Cool. Well, where can people find you on social medias?

I can be found on Twitter and on Instagram as EH Blalock. I can be found on TikTok as Mr. Blalock, MR. Blalock. And we collectively can be found on the Twitter machine at Geek History Time. And where can they find you? Well, you can find me at Duh Harmony on both the Twitter and the Instagram. You can also find me every Tuesday night on Twitch.tv

for slash capital puns. Also, there is a YouTube channel now with myself and my partner Ian McDonald. I don't do anything on my own. I always have a partner. Yeah, well, you know, my pun show, this, the show that I'm doing with Ian McDonald that now is on Excelsior Gaming on YouTube,

type in Excelsior Gaming. And it's the one that has a character from Marvel Strike Force as the thing where we teach people how to play Marvel Strike Force in a very fun way. And so I recommend those. Beyond that, I would say that that's enough. I think so. I think so. So I am continually amazed at your energy and how many balls can you keep

in the air? Yeah, I can juggle. I can juggle three. I did a lot of plays. Yeah. It beats being lonely. Okay. Well, that makes sense. You have a family full time. So yeah. Yeah. So. But yeah, that's where you can find me. And eventually, if we can beat the variance and keep everything from getting worse, eventually you can find me live doing comedy again. But that's an indeterminate amount of time away.

I'm determined it, yeah. So yeah. All right, well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed wham. I'm a superintendent, yeah, so. Yeah. All right, well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock, and if you want to learn more, tune in next time.