A display screen that says "Starfleet Academy 300th Night Year End Celebration"
What a year! Congrats, cadets for being part of history - the first year completed at #StarfleetAcademy historical grounds, San Francisco on Earth. Amazing to see so many sign ups for 2nd year exogeography courses already! No doubt things will be calmer and quieter now, so enjoy the upcoming break.
Our #StarfleetAcademy cadets are off on a break for a few days and campus will be closed. For #AllWorldsDay, they can be whisked off to a destination of their choice. If *you* could go anywhere in the galaxy in an instant for a short trip, where would you go? #StarTrek
#StarfleetAcademy. Iโm owning up! My poor knowledge of ancient Earth Latin had some cadets were holding back laughter in todayโs seminar. I mistakingly thought the Latin โcumโ meant โthenโ, but it actually means โwithโ. But believe me - there *were* real Earth village names containing it! ๐คฆโโ๏ธ๐ -CmdrKM
Strange that when weโve seen Discovery jump that we can hear this noise, despite no air in space to transmit it!
Illustration of a smiling Hayao Miyazaki surrounded by whimsical anime characters, flying machines, and fantastical creatures, set against a vibrant blue background. https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/36059/hayao-miyazaki-working-new-anime-film
๐งต(12/12) I consume these artifacts and use them in teaching because data informs, statistics summise, Holosimulations demonstrate. But a 1000-year-old cartoon about a girl and a forest god? That moves. So, thank you, Miyazaki! I'd like to think one of our legendary ships was named after you -CmdrKM
๐งต(11/12) The technology changesโthe faces are vastly more diverse, the settings are other planets, the effects are realโbut the stories are still about love, identity, and trying to figure out what makes us sentient. We just tell them with better special effects.
๐งต(10/12) The popular culture and entertainment of the 32nd century in some ways is wildly different from that over 1,000 years ago, but in others it's not really. We consume our stories through neural feeds and immersive holosuites, yet we still argue about whether the villain was actually right.
A young woman, wearing blue, joyfully flies a futuristic glider over a lush, green valley with distant mountains and windmills under a clear sky.
๐งต(9/12) And my personal favourite - Nausicaรค of the Valley of the Wind (EY1984) In a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by humans, a princess understands a toxic jungle's true purifying purpose. Her empathy and pacifism calm rampaging Ohm, revealing love for all life is the only path to harmony.
Two animated characters in a lush, green landscape. One rides a large white wolf, while the other rides a red creature with horns, looking at each other.
๐งต(8/12) Princess Mononoke (EY1997): A prince cursed by hatred seeks harmony between Iron Town's industry and the forest gods. Torn between love and war, San and Ashitaka fight to break violence's cycle and heal a wounded world.
Two people stand in a grassy field, gazing at a massive, whimsical mechanical castle with a face-like facade. Snowy mountains and a clear sky form the backdrop.
๐งต(7/12) Howl's Moving Castle (EY2004): Amidst a pointless war, a cursed young woman brings love and purpose to a vain wizard. Their bond forms a family that champions pacifism, proving love is the magic that can stop conflict.
๐งต(6/12) What is so inspiring and captivating to me, an exogeographer at heart, is that almost all of Miyazaki's movies produced through Studio Ghibli were characterised by the recurrence of themes such as feminism, environmentalism, pacifism, love, and family. Things I hold dear. Some examples...
Triple-panel image of Studio Ghibli films: "Ponyo" features a red-haired girl underwater; "Princess Mononoke" has a girl riding a white wolf; "Castle in the Sky" depicts a boy and girl flying in a blue sky. Mood: adventurous.
๐งต(5/12) Imagine a holonovel where the resolution is low, the characters are flat (literally, 2D drawings), projected onto a physical screen that you cant interact with. That's 'anime'. But the core of itโthe huge eyes to show emotion, the exaggerated expressions, the dramatic slow-motion sequences.
A picture of a Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese man with white hair, beard and moustache and black rimmed glasses. Wearing a white jacket and holding a microphone.
๐งต(4/12) This is Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist Hayao Miyazaki (ๅฎฎๅด ้งฟ) b.1941 d.2045 (Earth Years - EY). He created a Studio Ghibli, a company which produced 'cartoon movies'. If you have not dived so far back into entertainment archives, I'll try to desribe!
A digital picture of a comic book titled "Tales from the Frontier" featuring a Federation (Star Trek) ship and the emblem of the United Federation of Planets.
๐งต(3/12) However, there is another famous 'Miyazaki' in Earth history - coincidential that it has to do with cartoons! Comic lovers know based-on-true escapades of the crew of the USS Miyazaki were featured in the series "Tales from the Frontier" #Spoilers: memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tales_F...
A futuristic version of Myazaki, Japan, with tall glass skyscrapers dome structures. A bridged river runs through it with mountains in the background.
๐งต(2/12) The name 'Miyazaki' is close to this exogeographer's heart! Now officially the vessel, like many Federation ships, is named after a city. In this case, the Japanese city Miyazaki, Kyushu, famous for being Earth's first certified fully tsumani and earthquake-proof settlement in late C21st.
The abandoned USS Miyazaki, a ship adrift in space surrounded by debris.
๐งต(1/12) #StarfleetAcademy Bon Yoyage, cadets and colleagues aboard the Athena! Watching her set off again as I stay put in San Francisco. I hope your sortie using the abandoned-cum-training ship USS Miyazaki goes well. Will be interested if any records fall. I've put my wager on!
In the aftermath of the Dominion War, a ship built for conflict must now learn to fight for peace.
From @starfleethist.bsky.social co-author of @wolf359project.bsky.social, this marks the beginning of a new TQP series.
Read it for Free now! tranquility.press/uss-pershing/
#StarTrek
๐งต(14/14) ...an anomalous temperature is never just about the water. It's about the whole system. So if any Exogeography cadet is interested in that extra credit lagoon recovery project... CmdrKM's inbox is open!
๐งต(13/14) This makes that lagoon anomolyโand the Bay weather compensator working overtimeโfeel a bit more significant, doesn't it? Whether an event lasts minutes or months, and whether it's caused by a trio of suns, a quieting of the wind, or the accumulated legacy of industrial history...
๐งต(12/14) ...until the development of sophisticated weather and climate control technologies centuries later brought stability. A sobering reminder that what we now manage with planetary-scale systems was once a crisis our ancestors could only endure.
A hyper-realistic, cinematic shot of a sophisticated, futuristic control room. Floating in the center is a large, high-resolution 3D holographic globe of Earth. The display is currently visualizing a powerful El Niรฑo event. The Pacific Ocean is the focal point, depicted with an intense, animated heat map. A massive, swirling plume of deep red and bright orange stretches across the equator from the South American coast, contrasting sharply with the cooler blue and purple tones of the surrounding oceans. Subtle, animated white arrows are visible, showing the disruption of the typical trade winds and the shifting of the jet stream. Overlaying the Pacific are dynamic, translucent data layers: pulsing isobars showing atmospheric pressure changes, and faint cloud simulations tracing the shifted storm tracks. Cascading columns of real-time data, graphs of the Southern Oscillation Index, and temperature readouts in a clean, neon blue font float beside the globe, anchoring the visualization in hard science.
๐งต(11/14) Human history records a troubling footnote. During the 21st century, unchecked greenhouse gas emissions strengthened the ENSO cycle, making both El Niรฑo and its counterpart La Niรฑa more extreme. These amplified oscillations exacerbated droughts, floods, and ecosystem collapses worldwide...
๐งต(10/14) ...shifting jet streams and disrupting weather patterns globally. Second, this warm layer acts like a lid, preventing the usual upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waterโthe very process that sustains the Opal Ocean's 'cloudy patches'โdevastating marine ecosystems along the way.
๐งต(9/14) During an El Niรฑo event, the normal Pacific trade winds relax, allowing a vast pool of warm water to flow eastward, blanketing the coast of South America. This has two key effects. First, like on Ni'Var, this warm water alters atmospheric conditions on a planetary scale...
๐งต(8/14) During an El Niรฑo event, the normal Pacific trade winds relax, allowing a vast pool of warm water to flow eastward, blanketing the coast of South America. The warm water alters atmospheric conditions on a planetary scale, shifting jet streams and disrupting weather patterns globally.
These global maps centered on the Pacific Ocean show patterns of sea surface temperature during El Niรฑo and La Niรฑa episodes. The colors along the equator show areas that are warmer or cooler than the long-term average.
๐งต(7/14) Finally, here on Earth in the Southern Pacific Ocean there is the ENSO (El Niรฑo Southern Oscillation), a natural, cyclical "pendulum" swing of the ocean-atmosphere system. Think of it as Earth's own powerful, planet-wide climate fluctuation...
AI generated image. A photorealistic, wide-angle seascape of an alien ocean on Alpha Centauri, named the Opal Ocean. The primary water is a stunning, impossibly clear, deep cerulean blue, so transparent you can see dozens of meters down to a pristine, sandy ocean floor. The surface is calm, with gentle swells. In the middle distance, a single, large, anomalous patch disrupts the clarity. It's a swirling, cloudy mass of cooler, turbulent water, a stark contrast of deep teal and rich jade green against the surrounding blue. This patch is churning with life: you can see a flurry of seabirds (or small alien flyers) diving into it, and the shadows of large marine creatures just beneath the surface, feeding in the suddenly nutrient-rich plume. The boundary between the clear blue water and the cloudy, life-filled patch is sharp and dramatic. The lighting is that of a bright, slightly hazy sun, with cumulus clouds on the horizon. The scene conveys a sense of immense, serene beauty interrupted by a violent, transient moment of fecundity.
๐งต(6/14) Alpha Centuri's Opal Ocean is named for the fact of its blue waters. The stunning clear water is a sign of a nutrient-poor ecosystem. Anomolous but ocassional 'cloudy' patches appear due to upwelling of nutrient-rich, deep, cold water rising to the surface, helping to support biodiversity.
A city skyline with tall structures is shown at sunset, under a cloudy sky with an orange-yellow glow and scattered lights in the buildings. A 'steaming sea' is in the background.
๐งต(5/14) On Ni'Var (fm. Vulcan), a strengthening of the planet's magnetosphere caused by alignment of its three suns causes 'Ionosphere-Troposphere Coupling', shifting wind patterns over the Voroth Sea. This pushes warmer waters eastwards towards the coast of Raal, causing a 'steaming' effect.
๐งต(4/14) In class we set aside the planned programme of study and looked into examples of abnormal ocean temperatures from different planets. Let's have a look at three in particular. The Voroth Sea on Ni'Var, the Opal Ocean on Alpha Centuri and the Pacific Ocean here on Earth.
๐งต(3/14) We have reached out to the Scripps-Taylor Institution of Oceanography based in San Diego to conduct a joint study of the impacts of the anomoly. Cadets will be invited to take part in a research expedition and volunteer in ecosystem recovery projects for extra credit.
๐งต(2/14) ... have on the local aquatic ecosystem. It was noted that the San Francisco Bay's weather compensator system had to work harder to supress abnormal cloud formation due to the excessive evaporation from the ocean's surface. The bizarre event only lasted a matter of minutes.
