Flash Back 2012

The top search terms that led visitors, mainly from the US, into my blog involved an impending end of the world by the year 2012. It appeared that my entry of more than a year ago had been one of the top search results for queries about "2012" and "end of the world." Actually, the most common search string would be one in denial: "2012 is not the end of the world." That made me chuckle, though the funniest for me was "how to prevent the end of the world in 2012." For some time, I actually topped the "how to prevent" search results!

I had mentioned my earlier post, the scientifically sound predictions for 2012: the alignment of the center of the Milky Way with the Sun as seen in the sky (the effects of which are open to speculation) and the height of solar activity leading to solar storms (that can damage satellites and power grids, among other things). Other events converging on that year, or specifically December 21, has fired up the imaginations or fears of the general public. Some of these events have been mentioned in Wikipedia. There are the astrological speculations on the said alignment. Also, the Earth might have a close encounter with some heavenly body. On the other hand, there could be an "elevated consciousness," a "superintelligence," a "singularity" on that point in time. Or, with talks on global warming, there could be an environmental/geological upheaval and depletion of resources, which could lead to war. The comprehensive collection of Dire Gnosis adds to the mix aliens, Kali Yuga (the Indian equivalent of the fallen state of humans) and predictions from indigenous tribes. My own explorations of the Internet have led me to The Fourth Turning which claims a cyclical nature of Anglo-American history. Of course, around 2012, there will be another crisis, but the book is optimistic that a new generation of Heroes would rise to the challenge. In a future entry, I'd discuss more on generations, but for now Wikipedia can provide an overview.

In all, the journey towards 2012 is either that of destruction or of enlightenment. Then again, maybe nothing will happen, but that will be a big boring disappointment.

The convergence from various sources: cultural, religious, historical, scientific and pseudoscientific, with some of them arriving at a 2012 conclusion independent of each other, could be quite compelling. It's no wonder fiction isn't far behind. The Wikipedia link on 2012 also provides references in the arts and popular culture, but anime is not listed, so I'll provide two.

The first one, RahXephon, has explicit references to 2012: its timeline indicates a re-emergence of a lost civilization a week before December 21. The rest of the story features battles between music-powered giant beings in a conflict between humans and the race of the lost civilization. I hear it's a mind-bender, but since I haven't watched this anime, I comment no further.

The second one is a real classic: Macross, also known in the West as Robotech (an adaptation that branched out to its own story). In its timeline, by 2010, humanity was almost wiped out in the first Space War with an alien race. Two years later, the first space colonies leave Earth to spread humanity and culture throughout the galaxy. The concept of fighter planes transforming into robots leading to spectacular dogfights in outer space captured my attention to its awesomeness. Its breakthrough use of music and war romance also made it attract a wide variety of fans. I actually stole the title of this entry from the collection of music videos made in line with the launching of the first colony.

Twenty-five years worth of movies and TV series later, the franchise is back with its latest offering, Macross Frontier, which tells the story of a colony traveling to the center of the galaxy by the year 2059. Two stills from the special premiere of this latest eye-popping animation series now adorn this blog entry.

-oOo-

Speaking of catastrophic events of cosmic proportions, Mars had a close scare when news of an asteroid impact came out last month. This asteroid, named 2007 WD5, passed by Earth (as close as 7.5 million kilometers) and was on its way to the red planet. On the event of an impact, this 50-meter space rock would produce a crater on Mars similar to the one in Arizona.

There actually had been one other documented celestial collision. Back in 1994, astronomers pointed their telescopes, Hubble included, to the Jupiter as 21 fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy smash into the gas giant (if just one of those chunks had struck Earth, we're goners). The difference this time, aside from Mars being a terrestrial planet like Earth, is that there are Martian probes in orbit and on the surface. These could check on the impact and return richer data, which could prove valuable in our own defense against falling space rocks.

Observations crossing over the New Year increased the probability of impact to as high as 3.6%. This wouldn't amount to much, but reaching the same level of probability of impact within the next hundreds of years is already rare among other Near-Earth Objects. Further observations within this month, however, reduced the chance of impact to 0.01% and the asteroid would deal Mars a close shave as it passes to within 4,000 to 26,000 km. Oh well, too bad there would be no interplanetary fireworks for January, but I'd still be counting down to 30 January 2008 18:55 UT+8, the estimated time of impact or closest encounter. Blame it on the movie Armageddon that showed how countdowns could be cool, especially when it counted down until the last second to catastrophe.

By the way, there would be a bigger one which would also give earth a close shave at around the same time.

-oOo-

One movie caught my attention while I was scanning the list of films for this year. It was a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, a 1951 film about a visitor from outer space named Klaatu and his invincible robot. I had watched the black and white original two years ago via Google Video (the movie's old enough to be part of the Public Domain, thus can be distributed for free) and was amazed at how they pulled off the "primitive" special effects. It could still induce the desired audience reaction fifty years later! Perhaps the iconic theremin music helped. The movie's message for peace had retained its lasting impact from the Cold War to the present War on Terror.

What got me really amused with this remake was that Klaatu will be played by Keanu Reeves. I could imagine him turning Klaatu into a Neo, and with a possible change in the script, might actually do some kung-fu fighting again. I don't know if the producers would include a 2012 angle to this one, but I'd be watching this remake, even if only for the lulz of seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still get remade into The Matrix.