I feel safer in this pandemic and economic meltdown now that Mike Pence has announced the name we must use when addressing members of the Space Force.
This is just such silly-bonkers. There is no space force, except as a line item on a budget that will be funneled off to defense contractors. They’re not guarding us against anything. I hope the Democrats just erase this nonsense off the spreadsheet as soon as they take office (they probably won’t, they love defense contractors, too.)
I do have to wonder what that streak of light on Earth in the bottom left of their logo is. Is that the Guardians launching missiles from Earth at some target in space, or the Guardians bombing some target from orbit?
“a name chosen by space professionals, for space professionals”
Yet it doesn’t contain any spaces.
I get some pretty heavy white supremacy vibes from that whole “Heritage – Mission – Culture” thing, but that’s probably just because it is almost always the white supremacists in the US government who go on about “guarding” American “Heritage” and “Culture”.
Who were the “space professionals”, anyway? There’s an air of desperation there; someone is figuratively jumping up and down and waving and yelling “Look at me!”
For a supposed branch of the US armed forces, “United States” is literally the tiniest (smallest font size) text on the poster. And for a supposed mission of “heritage” and “culture”, there is a surprising dearth of symbolism relating to the United States and its armed forces.
In fact, the logo looks to me like they are trying to evoke Star Trek. Or maybe the Star Trek mirror universe with the Empire of Planets.
And all this time I was under the impression that space energy comes from Sugar Smacks.
I am a space professional. I have a Masters degree… in space!
To quote the 31.century philosopher T. Leela: Oh Lord.
Will the Space Force therefore have a guardian angel as their mascot? My grandmother had a suitable bit of kitsch hanging on her wall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_angel#/media/File:Guardian_Angel_1900.jpg
Watch this space ,no not that space ,this space .And in space ,no one can hear al the bollox that humans come out with .
That streak of light is actually the donald on Jan 20’th being evicted from the white house, with extreme prejudice.
Haven’t you heard??? The inhabitants of Proxima Centauri b (Proximians?) have launched an invasion force – well, at least are beaming radio waves at us. Probably official notification that Earth is about to be destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Well, that’s if said waves are not actually coming from a satellite or telecomms mast or whatever.
They know how to appeal to their base. Conservatives view the world as a mashup of movies, comic books and religious legends.
That streak is the Moneydroppers providing ….logistical support …. to the aforementioned contractors.
…Operation Warp Speed…
Detecting a theme here. Brought to you by Spacely Sprockets no doubt.
“I do have to wonder what that streak of light on Earth in the bottom left of their logo is. Is that the Guardians launching missiles from Earth at some target in space, or the Guardians bombing some target from orbit?”
It’s targeting that space station containing a nursery, a school, a hospital and a retirement home for the exceptionally frail, and staffed entirely by unpaid volunteers. The target has been designated a terrorist training camp by the DoD. Everyone can feel safer when they spot the bright flash in the sky.
So is this the Earthican branch of Guardians of the Galaxy?
By the way, Picard just called, he wants his com badge back.
Wtf does “heritage” and “culture” mean?
oddie #15, code words for white supremacy.
If there were extraterrestrials in low earth orbit, they probably found it too crowded and left already. Where is this “space force” supposed to operate?
Culture (War) — Keeping the world safe for Christmas
Heritage — Keeping the world safe for Confederate statues
IOW, protecting Trumplandia from blue state eggheads and losers. Look up in the sky and be very afraid liberals, the great orange sky god will smite you if you don’t assimilate… “Resistance is Futile.”
stroppy@18 COVID-19: that’s just a big hoax, so we’ll ignore that and work on the important stuff.
I have noticed this m.o. of the GOP (and please don’t “both sides” me on this, because both sides don’t). You make up an entirely fake problem (libruls trying to destroy Christmas). This gives you an excuse to ignore any real problems that come up (and require work and thought to address). It also inevitably means you create a lot of new and real problems as a result.
I thought that we can’t afford this? After all, we can’t afford buying enough vaccine, nor feeding and housing hungry and evicted people, nor keeping unemplyment insurance or Social Security disability benefits going.
I mean, think of the debt we’d be passing on to future generations! (Who will probably be greatly less in number since their parents are starving, homeless, and dying of COVID).
Oh, I forgot: fascism relies heavily on performative military pageantry. Silly me.
Pretty sure this is all a flimsy cover for the US sneaking nuclear weapons into orbit. We’ll know if there is a launch failure followed by a massive cleanup as they try to figure out how to get all the plutonium un-scattered.
I wonder if their commander will be “Star Lord”?
And will Marvel sue for trademark infringement?
One unrecognized benefit:
If the official anthem is restricted to pieces on Awesome Mix (Vol. I), that will be a huuuuuuuuuuge improvement on anything that’s otherwise “military music.” And it will make for fewer “we’re all carrying muzzle-loading muskets and bayonets haven’t been invented yet” marching displays. (Somehow, though, I doubt that there will be any dance-offs on the parade ground.)
What worries me most will be the call to establish a Space Academy. With Betsy DeVos as the chancellor, no doubt: The first military-academy charter school! Then they can all be space cadets fur realz.
We gotta be in Space™ to launch our super-duper missiles!
Wow, Bunko Baby has always been a toddler, but he’s regressing rapidly toward fetushood. I can’t tell if he’s aspiring to be Captain America or Space Dandy. This is embarrassing. Good thing in Space™ no one can…you know.
9) #KG: That article is from The Guardian. Coincidence?
I have Sun Ra’s Space is the Place as my ring tone. The first part is definitely attention-getting. I have to be in the right mood for it, but it makes a great meditation.
I focus on what I believe is the baritone sax the whole time.
This is unlikely to become an anthem for the Space Force though. Possibly they could revive the name Sugar Smacks or even renamed them Space Sugar Smacks as the official Space Force breakfast. Gotta get that space energy.
Okay, the Space Force is a bit of idiocy cooked up by Copperpot Dictator Trump. That said, without his stupidity we would not have this OP’s headline, and we would not have yours truly confused about who Emperor Zurg is, and thus I would never have known that there’s a wikipedia page devoted solely to the phrase “Evil Emperor”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Emperor
Sometimes even bad things can produce a good result or two.
C.f. intercontinental ballistic missiles gave us Tang.
This is literally an old Pontiac logo, upside down.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7e/Pontiac_Logo.png/250px-Pontiac_Logo.png
Ugh! These morons are making being a space opera fan embarrassing.
brucej@27 Hey, you want your hard-earned tax dollars going to some fancy pants graphic designer?
I haven’t bothered to check, but this whole thing has to be satire, right?
I already know the subcategories of Guardians: Hunter, Titan, and Warlock. They’ll protect the Earth with space magic and yappy floating office puzzles.
All right, I give up. I know I’m giving NYT too much credit, but it’s apparently real. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/space-force-guardians-mike-pence.html And that’s not quite an upside Pontiac arrow, though it sure seems to be “inspired” by it.
Maybe the joke is on Pence, kind of like how John Bolton was literally dispatched to Outer Mongolia to get him out of the way. I’m not sure it is even meaningful anymore to try to tease apart what’s real and what’s just for lulz.
The graphics here are worse than a low budget movie poster.
To me, the insignia looks like a bad mashup of the Starfleet logo and the emblem of the Star League from The Last Starfighter.
The less said about the moniker “guardians”, the better.
Looks like the symbol, at least, partially antedates Star Terk
such a stunt make a big deal about making up a new fancy name but don’t do the important thing of uping the budget for space by some impressive amount. just hand out a fancy title and more responsibilities insteasd of like you know a raise in pay.
uncle frogy
Look at the bright side. Every dollar spent on this is a dollar not spent on actual war.
Unless they start doing stupid shit like the Chinese did back in 07. I’d be happy to start SPR INC (Space Renovation Services), where you can buy a debris-free orbit for a nominal fee. A variable space mirror above geosynchronous orbit should do the trick. And I promise I won’t go all evil mastermind with it. Although Elon Musk might want to invest in a hat and some sunblock 2billion.
Guardians against what? Could this have a tie-in with the Office of Naval Intelligence’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force?
Does anyone else think that emblem looks like it was stolen from Star Trek?
@37 I’m partial to the Pontiac theory. What’s good for GM Is good for America after all.
Its going to take the Proximians about 1,000 years to get their ships here.
All the important white men of America will have to join Star Farce and be on high alert immediately. Maybe we can arrange for them to go on the B ark to meet the invaders head on.
They can say whatever they want about the logo. They want a ‘space force’ and aren’t imaginative enough to not look like a Star Trek ripoff, they deserve the comparison.
With any luck it will go the way of Reagan’s SDI aka ‘Star Wars’ program and quietly get defunded and folded into the Air Force or something. Star Wars had an equally silly logo, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative
tytalus@40 I lived through SDI but I never saw that logo or at least, I never paused to think about how ridiculous it is. A shield, seriously? I get the metaphor, but a medieval shield in space isn’t the first thing I’d think of for stopping nuclear weapons. Some kind of “forcefield dome” for bad science fiction, or maybe an attempt to illustrate Teller’s “brilliant pebbles.”
A shield? Why not a brick wall in space? Trump could get on board with that today.
Lol! wait this is pathetic ( facepalm 🤦🏽♀️
Fortunately, Congress did a kibosh on a new branch, so the space force is just a new air force command. Largely, they monitor what’s in orbit, so that satellites orbits can be adjusted to avoid space junk.
wzrd1@43 That’s an important job, but maybe they should be called Space Traffic Controllers instead of Guardians.
“I haven’t bothered to check, but this whole thing has to be satire, right?”
They only have to rename it the “Space Farce” to complete the parody. Having an idiot anti-science creationist like Pense in charge of that farce was the perfect start for the parody.