Color Me Disappointed

So the Large Hadron Collider is officially now online. Despite fears (or at least fearmongering) that the LHC could, inter alia, create a black hole (er, sorry, Barack Hussein Obama fans, I meant "a hole of no color")that would devour the earth, or give rise to the wonderfully-named strangelets which would render the entire solar system into a puddle of grey strangelet goo, we are still here.

And I am, in a really weird and uncomfortable way that I'm not quite fully prepared to explore, a little disappointed. Wouldn't it be neat to be able to tell the grandkids (metaphorically speaking, of course, as they would consequently never exist) that you were alive when a new and exotic form of matter was created? Or isn't your curiously just a little bit piqued to know what's on the "other side", so to speak, of a black hole? And as a Bible-thumping redneck fundie, I know that any world-ending event must coincide with the Rapture, so I've got that going for me too!

And yet, here we are, mundane as ever, with Wednesday being exactly the same, for all intents and purposes, as the Tuesday before it. Ho-freakin'-hum.

Maybe the SSC down in Texas will come back online in the future, despite the best efforts of time-traveling world-saviors, and I'll get to experience a singular event of Physics then. Lousy Democrats and their lousy project-cancelling. One more reason to resent Bill Clinton!

Stupid IATT Bulletin 1147...

From "Wikihistory", by Desmond Warzel:

11/15/2104
At 14:52:28, FreedomFighter69 wrote:
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1936 Berlin, having taken the place of one of Leni Riefenstahl's cameramen and assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic Games. Let a free world rejoice!

At 14:57:44, SilverFox316 wrote:
Back from 1936 Berlin; incapacitated FreedomFighter69 before he could pull his little stunt. Freedomfighter69, as you are a new member, please read IATT Bulletin 1147 regarding the killing of Hitler before your next excursion. Failure to do so may result in your expulsion per Bylaw 223.

At 18:06:59, BigChill wrote:
Take it easy on the kid, SilverFox316; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, what's the harm?

At 18:33:10, SilverFox316 wrote:
Easy for you to say, BigChill, since to my recollection you've never volunteered to go back and fix it. You think I've got nothing better to do?

Read the whole thing. Heheh...

(HT: Fark)

Frank Herbert, Call Your Office

Some guy compares the Democratic nomination race to My Official Favorite Book of All Time, Frank Herbert's Dune. With Obama cast as Paul Atreides. Dangit. Now I feel all icky.

Ok, somebody Photoshop Mr. Hussein-Obama's head onto a sandworm for me.

(HT: Jonah's Odd Link Gal)

To Boldy Groan...

In a much-anticipated, oft-promised move, the gang over at NRO's The Corner have been nerding it up big time today with many Star Trek-themed posts today (if your today, as you read this, is not the 28th of September in the Year of Our Lord 2007, you'll have to dig through their archives). The capstone to this whole exercise takes the form of an editorial, beamed directly from the 23rd Century by the "Elder of the Holo-NRO", expositing the need for an aggressive foreign policy toward the Romulan Empire. Given the elapsed time and inevitable positional shifts among political groups, does that make them neo-neo-neo-...-neocons?

Anywho, do your inner geek a favor and follow those links.

The Old Gods

Here is an interesting article at The American Thinker, by Timothy Birdnow, establishing a clear link between ancient paganism and the modern Environmentalism movement. While I think he goes a little too far in marking out the "sins" of the Christian Evangelical environmentalist movement (e.g., just being in the same movement as a pagan idolater does not make one an idolater as well), he does make some very interesting points. What piqued my interest most, however, was his take on the "old gods" of nature and how they are (metaphorically, I presume, as well as literally) resurgent in the false idols of Spiritism, Wicca, new-age Druidism, Secular Humanism, Materialism, Modernism, etc. He also interestingly ties this into the casting out of Legion by Jesus Christ, as though "Legion" either stood for, or quite literally was the collective essence of all these old gods.

Of course, being a big sci-fi/fantasy nerd myself, this immediately grabbed my attention as a very interesting prospect within the modern fantasy genre: what if the "old gods" were indeed real entities, only lying dormant due to lack of belief or the conquering power of Christ, but newly resurgent with the rise of secularism and the "return" to ancient pseudo-religions? The concept of a return of existence of old gods is hardly original; Neil Gaiman's American Gods was an excellent, entertaining yarn about that very concept (with a twist, in which "gods" were simply the "magical" product of collective faith, rather than pre-existent beings); similarly, Raymond Feist's Faerie Tale followed the same tack with respect to the "faerie folk" and its assorted pantheon. But what about attacking the subject matter from a Christian perspective? I think there is considerable potential on which to draw here. Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness and its sequel come close, wherein there is a very real, constant spiritual battle going on invisibly all around us, in which angels and demons quite literally war over our souls, wreaking real-world consequences which only seem natural in interpretation; however, in his books there is a distinct and impenetrable barrier between the spiritual world and the physical world.

There is certainly a Biblical basis for the assumption that the "old gods" did indeed correspond to real beings: 1 Corinthians 10 talks about food sacrificed to idols, and Paul makes this point in verse 20: "No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons." If you believe on faith that demons truly do exist (and I do, because my Bible says so, and gives me no indication that "demon" is always a metaphor for something else), then this verse indicates that, indeed, the false idols worshipped (at least in the first century AD, by the pagan Greeks in Corinth) do indeed have underlying them a demonic influence.

But back to the idea of a story: suppose these ancient spiritual entities were resurgent in their power. If they truly did have power over the earth (and we have every reason to believe this scripturally -- repeatedly the "ruler of this world" is mentioned in a supernatural context, as in John 12:21, as is, for example, in Ephesians 2:2, the "prince of the power of the air"), and this power could be used to the detriment of believers or of virtuous pagans who have never heard the Word of God, then what recourse could/would God take to empower His followers to combat this?

I don't have a fully-formed vision of that scenario, but it's definitely thought-provoking to me.

Void Where Prohibited

So apparently scientists have discovered a void in space that is considerably larger than any void they would expect (presumably based on statistical models for the distribution of matter throughout the universe?) -- on the scale of "a billion trillion miles" . But is it really a void after all?

A common theme in science fiction is interstellar war. Often, some upstart, newly advanced race will set out to conquer the universe with fearsome weapons of war, rolling over older, more mature races in its path (Kevin Anderson's "Empire of the Sun" series concerns this theme, as does Peter Hamilton's excellent "Night's Dawn" trilogy -- if you consider the souls of deceased human beings possessing the living to be an "upstart race"). Similarly, new races may face ancient perils in the form of leftover "doomsday" technology -- Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space is a prime example of this, as are a handful of old Star Trek episodes. Under the very reasonable assumption that we are not the first in this universe, then, it becomes very reasonable to assume that, throughout the existence of our universe, many races have existed, and have reached a point in their technological development that they are able to interact with other races. And if you'll allow me to anthropomorphize a bit here, I think we may also assume that belligerence could have erupted, on occasion, among those races. If not, at least the expectation of belligerence could be very real.

Back to the void: if it is indeed a statistical anomaly as the article indicates, then it may be a "man"-made phenomenon. This could be the result of one of at least two (presumably very many, though) root causes. First, that some sort of weapon of destruction on a scale unimaginable by human beings had been unleashed at some point in the past, completely annihilating all matter within a certain, very large region. For example, nanotechnology could be exploited to cause this without any remaining trace if the underlying "nano-intelligence" were pre-programmed to be self-terminating after a certain amount of time and operated in such a manner as to remove all matter in an radially increasing fashion from some central point, yielding an area completely devoid of all matter and energy.

Second, though -- perhaps the expectation of belligerence has caused some large civilization simply to hide itself. I don't think it would be particularly daunting for a sufficiently advanced civilization to accomplish this, either: some sort of sustained field or effect surrounding one's entire interstellar civilization with would cause all electromagnetic energy passing through this barrier to return to its source in such a way as to indicate nothing was contained therein. On vastly smaller scales, we already do this ourselves (stealth technology for flying vehicles, echo-repeating technology underwater, etc.). With hyper-advanced automation and access virtually unlimited construction materials, what's to stop a paranoid race from hiding themselves in a similar manner?

I think this has considerable merit, if we look at it from our own humanistic point of view. Our current approach has been one of (very) limited manned, physical exploration combined with lots of remote sensing (think Hubble). Consider then our own reaction, as a species, if this remote sensing discovered irrefutable proof of other intelligent life "out there" -- would not our own insatiable curiously compel us to somehow establish contact with this race by expending great materiel and effort (think the Space Race on steroids)? Suppose, then, that our alien counterparts developed, a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, in an analogous manner. If we impute to them the same qualities we humans have, along with a healthy dose of paranoia, the end result might be a race determined to proactively hide itself from the prying eyes and ears of fledgling civilizations. And what could be less interesting to our curious sense of exploration than a vast expanse of nothing?

Maybe our statistical models are wrong. Maybe our assumptions of what constitutes "nothing" are also wrong (we can't detect "dark matter", after all, even though scientists believe the bulk of the universe is composed of it, so what's to say that dark matter isn't exactly what we think it is, and this void is actually quite full?). But maybe this void really is anomalous, and anomalies are always worth inspecting a bit closer -- particularly anomalies on the scale of quintillions of miles.

This Looks Promising

Over at The Corner, John J. Miller has a bleg:

I'd like to assemble a list of great conservative science-fiction novels and so, dear readers, I ask for your help. I consider myself well read in sci-fi but my knowledge is hardly encyclopedic. Please send recommendations to nrorocks-at-yahoo.com.

A few ground rules: Include title and author, plus at least a short argument about why a particular novel belongs on the list. Also, I'm happy to define "conservative" in the broad spirit of fusionism, so libertarian books count. Now, blast off.

This is the same guy who, some time ago, published the list of the top 50 conservative rock songs in the pages of NRODT. So like I said, this looks promising.

Ok, A Scifi Post At Last

Well, actually, a fantasy post. I've come up with an idea for a plotline in a Fantasy Epic ripped, ripped, I say, from today's headlines. See if you can follow me.

The milieu: a Great Empire (of course!). Largely a benevolent empire, fraught, of course, with the usual corruption, political strife, dissent and general malaise that any large empire might succumb to after a long period of existence. It is a gentle master to both its native and subjugated peoples, as often incorporating new lands through shrewd political alliances as through military maneuvers, and acting more as a protector and provider to its inhabitants than as a cruel, greedy overlord. It has no equal among all the Known Lands.

Dramatis Personae: First, the various Great and Minor Factions:

The Aristocracy: The ruling class. Dare I say it: The Deciders. Shades of past glory surround them all, from the well-intentioned but perhaps unpersuasive Emperor and his loyal cadre of advisors, to the Nobles, constantly bickering amongst themselves, desparately crying out for a great leader the likes of which has not been seen for generations.

The Priesthood: The interpreters of the Holy Law, written in an arcane tongue, completely incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Many among the Aristocracy have served their time in the Priesthood, and many among the Priesthood seek the keys to power offered by the Aristocracy. They hold a virtual monopoly on justice, on trade, and even the day-to-day lives of the people. Many among them have twisted the innate goodness of the Holy Law with endless, changing interpretations to suit their own ends, while a few others strive to keep clear the original intentions of the Prophets, the founders of the Holy Law.

The Magisterium: The keepers and dispensers of the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the Empire. Practicioners of occult and mysterious arts. Pale shadows of a formerly great institution, the Magisters have largely forsaken the talents and knowledge of their forebears in pursuit of the trivial and meaningless. The positions of power within the Magisterium are often obtained not by those who merit them, but the political maneuvering of the weak-minded but ambitious. Virtually all of the Priesthood and the Aristocracy have been subject to the tutelage of the Magisterium at some point in their lives, and members from among all the Great Factions retire into the Magisterium to pass on their accumulated experience and knowledge.

The Guildsmen: Members of The Guild, once a group of respected individuals, leaders and merchants from among the general populace, praised for their fairness and objectivity in all things, were granted a great deal of secular authority because of this reputation. The Guildsmen maintain an iron grip, only now beginning to wane, on the free flow of information throughout the Empire. Now a notorious group of partisans, beholden to certain seditious factions both within and without the Empire, they still maintain the pretense of their unbiased past.

The Unguilded: Upstart rivals to the Guildsmen. Initially ignored by The Guild as a passing fancy, a dead-end movement, this Minor Faction has since grown into a loosely affiliated group of loudly vocal reformers, comprising its membership from among all the Great Factions and even the general populace of the Empire itself. Due to persecution by both the Guild and the other Great Factions, many of the Unguilded act only in disguise to protect their identities.

The Agitators: Initially fellow-travellers with the Unguilded, employing many of the same tactics, the Agitators have diverged, often finding itself allied with the very opponents of the Unguilded at all turns. Unlike the largely rational Unguilded, the Agitators are more prone to theatrics and hysterics in the pursuit of their causes.

The Imperial Legion: The Unbreakable Sword and Shield of the Empire. The only Great Faction whose prestige and skill have remain largely undiminsihed over the centuries, the Imperial Legion is unparalleled in might among all the Known Lands. The Imperial Legions are generally divided into two categories: the Imperial Battle-Magi, trained in both the deadly arcane arts and the skills of military tactics by the Magisterium, and the vastly larger and equally lethal, if mundane, Emperor's Legions -- the footsoldiers and front line warriors of the Imperial Legion. While largely independent from the machinations of the other Great Factions, many of the Imperial Legion are granted land and title within the Aristocracy, for better or worse.

The Menacing Horde: Not a Great Faction, or even an entity within the Empire itself, but an outside force, loathesome of all the Empire represents, and bent on ruling the Known Lands through all means at its disposal. Once a great empire in its own right, the Menacing Horde has become a fractious, but no-less-deadly force for great Evil throughout the Known Lands. Many among the Great and Minor Factions seek to dismiss the Menacing Horde as a fantasy, a tool the Empire seeks to use to control the masses, a misunderstood but sympathetic group, or even welcome "saviors" who may at last thwart what they see as the injustices of the Empire. Most of the people of the Empire do not understand the threat posed by the Menacing Horde, but nevertheless expect the Empire to protect them from it. Only a few among the Great Factions truly comprehend the danger to their very way of life and seek to thwart it.

So there you have it, a rough-and-ready sketch of my oh-so-subtle commentary on current-day events in a fantasy milieu. If I feel compelled, I'll actually develop some characters for this world. Being an unseasoned-but-hopeful author, I will of course make the protagonist... oh golly, let's see -- how about a neophyte member of the Magisterium, secretly a member of the Unguilded, who uses his own skills to enhance the Imperial Legion's naval forces through arcane means, and recognizes the Menacing Horde for what it truly is? That way, nobody would suspect me as the author!

I complained already about a lack of Christian science fiction. At least the libertarian trends of many sci-fi authors helps out there from at least a conservative point of view... and there's always Orson Scott Card. But Conservative Fantasy? I think I might have just tapped a gold vein here! Or, dare I say it, a mithril vein!

Update: A couple more Minor Factions:

The Healers: As their name implies, an independent outcropping of the Magisterium who have furthered their intense training to specialize in the art of both natural and supernatural physical restoration. Due to the perilous nature of both their training and their craft, their life-extending services may come at a high cost; however, their numbers are dwindling due to interference from the Hedge Witches, whose charms and wards they are often forced to employ as protection against accusations of Necromancy by the Priesthood.

The Hedge Witches (and Wizards): a very loose-knit association of those who pretend to skill in the eldritch arts, specializing largely in charms, wards, totems, hexes, and curses, whose services are sold to the highest bidder. While the efficacy of these various charms is in doubt, their protection is sought by many factions, willingly and unwillingly, and often at prohibitive prices, to absolve themselves of personal liability should their efforts go awry.

The Cabal: a small, elite association of highly-skilled sorcerors, specializing in conjuration and teleportation. Without the support of the Cabal, many factions both Great and Minor would find their livelihoods greatly diminished. Apart from the conjuration of Magickal Essences, used in the production of many goods throughout the Empire, the Cabal also provides its teleportation services, at high cost both to themselves and their employers, to all the great factions. The Cabal operates under great distrust from outsiders, suspected of forming alliances with unsavory elements outside the Empire to provide them with the raw materials necessary for their rituals and spells, even among the Menacing Horde. The Cabal also stands acused of wielding much more power and influence among the Great Factions than any Minor Faction has a right to. Nevertheless, the services they provide function as the backbone of the might of the Empire.

Please Direct Your Attention Below

I've received a number of comments recently (over the Christmas holiday break) on my thread, "Whither the Christian Science Fiction". I'd just like to direct my usual readers to that thread, as there are some very fascinating links provided there. I have not yet had a chance to fully peruse the (presumably) fine blogs of the individuals posting there, but a cursory glance indicates a rich smorgasbord of the sort of stuff my post discussed.

Whither the Christian Science Fiction

As a life-long fan of "hard" science fiction, it's always vexed me that I've never been able to find any deeply Christian sci-fi, and I genuinely do not understand why this is. I mean, it seems that most truly good sci-fi writers have at least some background in the hard sciences, and the hard sciences certainly have no shortage of Christians among their practicioners (despite what some ivory-tower academics may want to believe). Some of the most devout individuals I've met in my life have also been brilliant scientific, rational thinkers. Additionally, I have certainly met many a devout Christian who is also as avid a fan of the sci-fi genre as I am. Thus: the talent is (presumably) there, and the market demand certainly seems to be as well. And yet, it seems an almost completely untapped market

Now, I consider myself moderately well-read in the genre. Since I equally enjoy fantasy as much as I enjoy sci-fi, my reading time is not entirely taken up by the subject, so I can't say I'm thouroughly well-read, but I have read most of the "masters" at least introductorily, if not exhaustively -- Asimov and Heinlein coming to mind in the latter category, Arthur C. Clarke and others moreso in the former. I admit that my tastes skip the "middle generation" of scifi -- authors now either dead or well past their prime, but of great prominence in the 60's and 70's -- but that largely springs from my own conservatism largely clashing with their seemingly obsessive counter-culturism. I enjoy a lot of modern scifi writers as well -- I think Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn "trilogy" (if it's a trilogy, why'd I buy six books, huh?) was fantastic, and Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos were actually good literature apart from being great space opera (as is his more recent Ilium, which I recommend to scifi fans as well. I have not yet read its sequel Olympos, however). My point is this, though: in hard sci-fi, when religion, particularly the Christian religion, is featured, it is almost always featured in a negative light. And the more prominently it is featured, the more negative its role in the story becomes.

It seems that Christianity is usually dealt with in one or both of two ways: it is either a power-hungry organization seeking galactic domination over humankind, or at best it is a benign group of naive, superstitious people whose beliefs are inevitably shattered by some sort of sci-fi revelation (e.g., Jesus Christ was really an alien, or a time-traveller, or some other "shocker"). Incidentally, of the two modern examples I just listed above of "good scifi", the latter in fact takes the first route as a major plot-point (a method for immortality is discovered, an the Church swiftly takes control of it), and the former takes the second ("souls" of dead humans are possessing the living, but it turns out the souls are just human consciousnesses in an alternate energy state). Fortunately, I read sci-fi because it is escapist, so I've gotten very good at my own willing suspension of disbelief. In neither case is the goal of the author to offend my nice Christian sensibilities, but merely to weave a good tale -- unlike the counterculturists I previously mentioned, whose sole goal always seems to be to advance one progressive agenda or another.

When Christianity and scifi do intersect in a friendly (or at least non-hostile) manner, it seems to take a limited number of forms. The first major form is the "morality tale" -- C.S. Lewis being a notable writer of such in his so-called "Space Trilogy". These tend either to be allegorical or much more introspective, and less of the "space opera" I'm talking about here -- i.e., very little action and lots of philosophizing. Think "2001" + God. Great stuff in its own right, but not what I'm talking about here -- i.e., "hard" sci-fi. Another major form, at least lately, seems to be taking a more biological tack -- I believe there's at least one Christian writer who surmises that the Second Coming of Christ might result from a cloning experiment using a miraculously- preserved drop of Christ's blood or some other DNA sample. Interesting premise, yes, but much too near-future to fulfill us hard-core space nerds.

As for "hard" "Christian" sc-fi, I'm not talking about some adventure-in-outer-space with a main character who happens to be Christian or extoll Christian values. I really do want the deep Christian philosophies examined in great detail, just with a backdrop of hard sci-fi, replete with technological extrapolation, a compelling plot, twists, turns, character development, the whole shebang. And I have yet to locate it. And I continue to look -- every time I'm in a Christian bookstore, I always spend the most time browsing the fiction section, in a desparate hope that someone has done just that. Thus far -- nothing.

To wrap this up, I should mention that I have my own ideas for what would make excellent Christian sci-fi. One idea, in particular, has been germinating in my mind for well over a year now, yearning to be set free onto paper. I'm too shy to go into detail about it just yet, but it's taking pretty solid form, at least in terms of the setting, overall plot, protagonist, and the details of the universe in which it is set. Ok, here's a teaser, which astute observers of my comments on certain other blogs might recall, at least in an oblique manner: within the milieu of a galactic-scale war between humanity and a sentient, highly-developed alien species, it will address the question of a) whether or not a non-human sentient species needs and is eligible for salvation, and b) what God may or may not have done about it. I won't give away the "big reveal" just yet, but the truth would, of course, have the power to change the fates of both species.

If any of my readers know of any Christian sci-fi of the type I describe, please, let me know! I'd love to read it.

How To Survive an Alien Invasion, part 1

There's been plenty written on how to survive an attack by hordes of the living dead, for example, meh (That's the sound a link makes!). But what about the altogether more plausible scenario of an alien invasion. I've decided to write a continuing series of posts on this topic, each covering a unique tactic for surviving should alien overlords attempt to invade, conquer, annihilate, or otherwise annoy the human race. Of course, the prime assumption here is that it is an actual invasion of some sort, rather than the ugly death-ray-from-space-without-warning scenario most prominently played out in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy docu-drama. There's just no helping that, without, say, a rebel alliance on your side or something.

Anywho, the format will go something like this: First, I'll provide the premise (since there are so many fiendish ways that aliens could invade, of course!), and then, I'll address at least one tactic by which the alien threat can be mitigated in at least some minor capacity. All for the good of mankind, mind you.

So without further ado:

Premise: Aliens infiltrate the planet by appearing to look just like us! Alternately, aliens make themselves known to us in some dramatic way, but again, they look just like humans.

Tactic: Before such an invasion happens (e.g., RIGHT NOW!), we must destroy every copy of any Looney Tunes cartoon, merchandise, recording, or other paraphernalia that exists. Why? Because I think no human, or at least no American citizen, fails to recall with deep understading the entire Looney Tunes milieu. Thus, that gives us a unique cultural identifier by which we can recognize one another in the face of this hidden invation. We can ask use the completion of catchphrases to identify one another ("What's up", says one person, "Doc", says the other, confirming his humanity), or simple trivia questions that only a human steeped in the lore of Looney Tunes would know. I have picked Looney Tunes because of its universal appeal, the fact that it has never explicitly been boycotted by Baptists, and its characters are, I feel, more memorable and uniquely human than, say, Disney's -- prone to human strengths as well as weaknesses. Of course, we must destroy such physical reminders because, as soon as the aliens invade, they can intercept our broadcasts, pilfer our stores, etc., and break our codes. Sorta like what would have happened if the Navajo Code Talkers had left their Navajo-English Dictionaries just lying around for any old Nazi to find back in WW2.

Following this principle also gives Americans a distinct advantage over non-americans, which is always good. I think Europe is already invaded by aliens anyhow. Only thing that makes sense, really.

More to come...

Semi-Rebuttal of the Implausability of a Trash Compactor On Board the Death Star

Ok, first things first, read this article. It's a reasonably articulate, and superficially convincing argument as to why the trash compactor on board the Death Star, into which Luke, Leia, et al., ventured to escape imperial guards, is at best implausible and at worst completely absurd. However, being a huge nerd, I have a number of bones to pick with the author's arguments, and I DO recall promising to include a number of posts of a science-fictioney nature. So without further ado:

0) The author explicitly assumes the Death Star ejects all its trash into space, based on an extrapolation of the fact that ISD-class ships (and let us further assume lower-class ships as well) eject their trash into space, as evidenced when the Millenium Falcon sneaks out with the trash. This is an invalid extrapolation, for several reasons. First, The sheer size differential between an ISD (Imperial Star Destroyer) and the Death Star dictates that different trash disposal systems may be entirely necessary. While able to travel through space at will, the Death Star, as the flagship battle platform of the Empire, may often find itself in extended geostationary orbit about a planet. As this article indicates, the station requires literally millions of workers, soldiers, and managers to operate to its full capacity. Millions of active people produce a LOT of waste. Even assuming the station has ample temporary waste storage facilities, it must eventually dispose of that trash in some manner. Ejecting it into space while stationary seems to be an absolutely disasterous approach, as the flotsam and jetsam created by such a process would create havoc among the massive force of accompanying starfighters and support craft. Imagine having to dodge every frozen flying turd while trying to dock!
So what solution apart from long-term storage and ejection is there for proper waste disposal? Keep in mind that the Death Star is nothing more than a platform for the galaxy's most powerful super weapon, the oh-so-imaginatively-titled Super-Laser. Apart from the ancillary and support services requiring power on board the station (and providing power for millions of people simultaneously is no simple task!), the laser itself requires an incredible amount of power. I won't even begin to guess as to the pure wattage required here, but as we know from Return of the Jedi, the reactor core is, in scientific terms, friggin' huge. So the simple solution is: why not use the waste-heat, or the core itself, to incinerate the trash? Seems simple enough. Of course, delivery to the incinerator requires some sort of transportable form of waste material, hence the compactor: nice, neat blocks of poo, ready for burning!

Now for his specific points, which I paraphrase in each case:

1) Why have a ventilation system leading to the trash compactor?
Proper one-way airflow and suction could have prevented any "out-go" of effluvia, hence the VENT COVER and the fact that she actually had to BLAST the thing to remove it. The "vent" might have ventilated out of the hallway rather than into it -- perhaps an air-purifying vent that trapped and removed impurities from the air, much like the CO2 scrubbers on board our own space facilities.

2) Why have a two-walled system of trash compaction rather than a single moving wall and a more stable, fixed second wall?
I promised myself that I'd only use this argument once: George Lucas is an idiot-manchild who got very lucky 2 1/2 times (woulda been three except for the ewoks).

3) Why does the trash compactor move so slowly, and why does a relatively thin metal rod nearly stop its compaction altogether?
The author makes the assumption that this particular trash compactor is supposed to compact metal and other solid trash. First of all, assuming this is true, I would imagine a slow, steady compaction is more safe and robust than a quick smash -- have you ever seen your own kitchen trash compactor at work? It takes a significant amount of time, and that's only for cardboard and paper products. Moreover, I call this assumption flawed. Two points here: first, while the DS was a relatively new facility, it WAS complete. How many of you working in fully-built buildings that are NOT production facilities of any sort throw away large pieces of scrap metal on a regular basis? Just because it's made of metal does not mean you'll be toting around and disposing of metal. Thus, it is highly likely this particular compactor may not have been designed to handle metal with any efficiency.
That brings me to my second point: if not designed for metal, why was there metal in the compactor? Well, here the newness of the structure plays into my favor. With millions of employees on board, you would be bound to have more than a few stupid or ignorant workers who are not familiar with the rules and regulations, and would thus attempt to dispose of their garbage improperly. I'm sure those workers were dealt with in the usual Imperial manner, which is to say a laser blast to the back of the head.

4) Why only compact the trash in one dimension, resulting in large flat pieces of trash to be ejected into space?
See my comment zero. You're not ejecting into space, but rather preparing it for incineration. Additionally, this assumes that the two-wall method was the only part of the compaction process -- perhaps the ceiling would descend at some point, and then the other side walls? We only saw this process because the remaining compaction process was thwarted by our intrepid heroes.

5) How did the critter living in the compactor survive?
I actually like the author's suggestion that the creature living there was actually put there on purpose, to devour organic trash, although I would suggest an alternative. My first point in rebuttal three addresses the presence of inorganic material. Then keep in mind that there are millions of people on board the Death Star. Those people must be fed. Rather than have to import food constantly, I would suggest that some of the massive space on board may be set aside for the growth of nourishment, perhaps through hydroponic methods. This, of course, requires fertilizer, so it's not a stretch to think that the designers would employ some method of recycling organic material for greater efficiency. Thus, I propose that the creatures is there to serve a purpose similar to our own earthworms: it "churns up" the organic material, aiding in the process of decomposition of organic material. Larger bits get compacted for disposal, but the heavier, decomposed bits fall to the bottom, as suggested by the author, and are collected for reuse in the food production facilities.
This may be a bit of a stretch, however. A simpler solution is as follows: Much like our own alligator-pets, some mid-level commander had an illicit pet one-eyed space eel (or whatever it was) that just got too big for his dinky quarters, so he just happened to have surreptitiously disposed of it after the last compaction cycle, so it was a relative newcomer to the area, just as scared as our aforementioned intrepid heroes (although if they were afraid, I guess they'd be trepid heroes rather than intrepid, right?).

6) Why have separate organic and inorganic waste disposal systems?
See response #3.

7) Why would an evil empire care about the environment?

I address the notion of trash dumping in my argument zero. Assuming the game Tie Fighter is canonical (and it was so friggin' awesome that it could be nothing BUT canonical!), we are presented with a much more sympathetic picture of the Empire. Sure, the overlords are evil bastards, but at the end of the day, they are out to control the universe, not destroy it. Even evil dictators can be good, if not "nice", stewards. If they trash up their empire, it's not much to brag about at the annual Convention of Evil Imperial Overlords conference, is it?

8) The worm-compactor combo is more inefficient than, say, a trash-ship to tote the trash away.

My arguments 0 and 5 rebut this complaint.

9) Space is so huge. Why bother compacting at all?

How many times must my argument zero counter his arguments? At least this is the last point he makes.

Therefore, quod erat non demonstrandum. The Empire was not in the business of creating hassles for itself. Ruthless efficiency indeed!