This week on Science Faction, life milestones collide with pop culture as Ben celebrates finally paying off over two decades of student loans while Devon contemplates a lifetime of payments. The crew also dives into Star Trek, Mothership, San Diego Comic-Con reveals, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Cowboy Bebop, and an unexpectedly deep rabbit hole exploring the technology behind the original Jurassic Park. As always, it’s a mix of real life, science fiction, and everything wonderfully nerdy in between.

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Real Life

Ben reached a major milestone this week by finally paying off his student loans after 21 years. It’s the kind of accomplishment that deserves a celebration, especially considering how many people are still carrying student debt decades after graduating. Devon balanced out the optimism by joking that he’s probably never going to finish paying his off.

Steven has been spending time with Mothership: Wages of Sin, another adventure for the acclaimed sci-fi horror RPG. If you’re interested in checking it out, you can find it here:
https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/collections/mothership

Ben also finds himself in an unfamiliar situation: waiting on absolutely nothing. Instead, he talked about his latest favorite gadget, the Clicks Keyboard for smartphones:
https://www.clicks.tech/powerkeyboard

The Star Trek discussion continued with Star Trek: Axanar – The Gathering Storm, where Faran Tahir’s appearance was a welcome surprise. You can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFpTiIHNTJ0&pp=ygUGYXhhbmFy

That naturally led into Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4’s episode Valles Marineris, which managed to answer the timeless question: What if Star Trek had dinosaurs? The crew discusses whether that’s exactly what Trek needed—or never knew it needed.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Valles_Marineris_(episode)

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Future or Now

San Diego Comic-Con brought plenty of announcements to unpack, including new reveals surrounding Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Jean-Pool, and the surprise pairing of Ghost Rider and Starfighter. Ryan Reynolds continues to find creative ways to keep Deadpool in the spotlight.
https://entertainmentnow.com/marvel-studios-movies-comics/ryan-reynolds-sdcc-deadpool/

Ben also rounds up several pieces of Avatar: The Last Airbender news, including the upcoming animated Aang film and the newly announced sequel series, Avatar: Seven Havens.
https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/avatar-aang-the-last-airbender-in-theaters

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/avatar-seven-havens-release-date-revealed

After finally finishing the original Cowboy Bebop anime and its movie, Ben shares his thoughts on why the series has remained such a classic for nearly three decades.

The conversation then shifts into one of the nerdiest rabbit holes imaginable: a painstaking technical breakdown of every computer seen in the original Jurassic Park. It’s a fascinating look at how the filmmakers blended real hardware with Hollywood magic.
https://fabiensanglard.net/jurrasic_park_computers/index.html

That naturally prompts Devon to shout, “SAM NEILL DIED! LET’S TALK ABOUT IT!” before everyone remembers they’re actually talking about his characters. The discussion quickly turns into a debate over Sam Neill’s best science fiction performance. Is it the cosmic horror masterpiece Event Horizon (1997), or the vampire thriller Daybreakers (2009)?

To wrap things up, the crew also highlights Jurassic Systems, a fan project dedicated to faithfully recreating the iconic computer interfaces from Jurassic Park.
https://www.jurassicsystems.com/

As always, expect plenty of tangents, questionable opinions, and passionate debates about dinosaurs, spaceships, anime, and why fictional operating systems from 1993 still look cooler than the ones we use today.