Science fiction has been on a downturn over the last decade. Sure, we get event movies a few times a year, but a lot of that audience has been taken over by tales of comic book heroes. Marvel is a hugely dominating force in film these days, but the real core audience for science fiction used to be found on the small screen. Science fiction fans demand longer, more complex stories, deeper character development, and to have their thoughts poked. Star Trek is most commonly trotted out as prime exemplar. 

Aside from the original series which was ended prematurely, there have been five other series, the animated one most people don't recall, three huge series with seven year runs, and one aborted attempt at going back in time that ran for only four seasons. If you look beyond Trek, however, you see that TV used to be riddled with all manner of scifi shows. Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Wild, Wild West (one of my personal faves that started in Black & White), and more recently Futurama, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Andromeda, the much loved Quantum Leap, the even more loved Firefly, Sliders, the amazing run of Dr. Who, Babylon 5, and that magnum opus, the new Battlestar Gallactica. 

Then something happened, and science fiction seemed to become less important to TV producers. Sure, there were the periodic stabs at it, but TV became a police drama/reality show wasteland. Even SyFy, that staunch stalwart of science fiction, wasn't producing as many series as it was running more horror-based content and live action shows that just weren't interesting. 

But then things started to pick up. 

A few years ago we got the phenomenally quirky and dark Orphan Black, the very dark re-imagining of the classic The Twilight Zone called Black Mirror, the look at the what it means to be good that is Dark Matter, and the perfectly cast Killjoys. These are all really good science fiction shows, but each of them lack something; that one thing that would make them great. Like The Expanse. 

I'll let the Wikipedia entry explain the plot, or at least as much as you're going to get: 

Two hundred years in the future, in a fully colonized Solar System, police detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), born in the asteroid belt, is given the assignment to find a missing young woman, Julie Mao (Florence Faivre). Meanwhile, James Holden (Steven Strait), the Executive Officer of the ice trawler Canterbury, is involved in a tragic incident that threatens to destabilize Earth, Mars and the Belt. Far away from their struggles in space, Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a United Nations executive, works to prevent war between Earth and Mars by any means necessary. Soon, the three find out that the missing woman and the ice trawler's fate are part of a vast conspiracy that threatens all humanity.

Watch in the opening moments of the first episode when you see Julie Mao's hair floating as if in real zero gravity (you'll find out who she is later). If you think they blew their budget on some sweet effects simply to make the first episode more compelling, you will be pleasantly surprised. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the set work and effects are mostly top notch. Much of what you see in the series would find itself more at home in movie theaters, not TV screens. 

The series is tight, unpleasant, unforgiving, brutal, and shatters your calm as you watch. It is as distressing and engaging to watch as mobster dramas. The violence, the language, the abidingly deep lack of care for human life rips at your soul. You want them all to go back home, knowing in the end that they can never step foot on Earth again, more likely to die in the vacuum of space or at the hands of killers. The glaring eye of the camera gazes unflinchingly at the characters on screen as their animal urge to survive at any cost is tested again and again. Death is around every corner. 

The Expanse is not Star Trek. It's not Star Wars or Dune or even the more recent iteration of Battlestar Galactica. There are no heroes or angels. There are no good guys and everyone has the spark of badness in their darkened souls. This is a dirty, hurt, and torn Solar System, touched and corrupted by the corrosive hands of mankind. 

Welcome to The Expanse. 

I've been struggling against the Right for months now, and I'm already feeling burnt out by all the hate and subterfuge. While it would be enormously fulfilling to me to find my words having an affect on a single, solitary conservative, I am convinced that day will not come. If I might use a regional metaphor, we are the coast of Southern California fighting against The Wedge of the Right Wing. The Pacific may be vast, but those who spend their entire days railing against positive human progress are the most entrenched of radicals. They will never be turned, but... you might find this amazing, they don't need to turn.

We simply need to vote.

It doesn't matter what the issues are, who the candidates are, which side you're on, what you believe, where you are from, whether you're a veteran, were born here, or became a citizen after immigrating. It is our right, our duty, as citizens of the United States of America, to vote for our government. It is our duty to determine the path of our country and who should lead us there to make it happen. The only thing that matters is that we do it as a nation, together, regardless of ideology or where we land on the spectrum.

We simply need to vote.

Right now, our country is represented by a small percentage of Americans, and those interests don't necessarily reflect the interests of America as a whole. In reality, we don't even know what America wants. Little more than half of us vote to select a President, and the turnout is far smaller in the mid-terms. That means roughly 40-60% of America decides what America looks like, how criminals are treated, what happens to big corporations when they break the law, how poor people are helped, how much workers should be paid, what taxes are fair, who we go to war with, and much more. If we want those things to change...

We simply need to vote.

From here on out, that's all I'm going to talk about in relation to politics. I may personally support Bernie and hope and pray that our country just gives a damn about people again sometime soon, but for purposes of politics, I will remain neutral. My aim, my goal, my aspiration is to simply get people to vote. I don't care what party you align with, your politics or beliefs or associations. I just care that you go to the polls this November 8th and vote. Vote for your country. Vote for your conscience. Vote for your family and friends. Vote for a better world, whatever that might be.

It only takes an hour or two every two years.

Don't troll me, bro. I'm no Linux hater. I used Linux for years. I started with Caldera back when we didn't know that SCO was evil. Despite lacking coding skills of any kind, I hand-crafted my system from the ground up. At that time I was so tired of Windows that I ran Windows apps from a server to my desktop machine just so I could use Linux as my daily driver. 

Linux is a fantastic OS. It's powerful, capable, efficient, and dynamic. You can make it do anything you want, as long you A) have the nerd chops and B) you don't work a job which requires mainstream applications. There are the standard arguments, though. Linux has plenty of apps that are like Photoshop/Microsoft Word/whatever. Linux has peerless security. Linux is more reliable. Linux is a lot of things, and most of them are good, but it's no bed of roses. 

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