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$1.5 Billion Star Trek Theme Park Coming To Jordan
MikeChino writes "King Abdullah of Jordan (who was once an extra in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager) has given the green light to a $1.5 billion Star Trek theme park that will boldly take Jordan where no Gulf state has gone before. While the theme park will not be powered by dilithium crystals, it will utilize green technology in order to lower its carbon footprint — all of its electricity will be generated by renewable sources." Just a few weeks ago Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Ahyan carved his name in the desert so it could be seen from space. It looks like Sci-fi has finally made it to the Middle East. I can't wait for them to discover Firefly.
Scotty, beam me down ...
....aaaand the nerds finally get a Mecca to call their own.
....aaaand the nerds finally get a Mecca to call their own.
Unfortunately it is being built right next to the desert where Our Lord and Savior Skywalker was raised. Millennia of death and fighting over this holy land will surely follow.
... and earn bucks from such distinguished extras. At least he payed his dues to fans all over. Transgression forgotten.
Scotty is dead Jim
Just hop on a camel for a day to get to Petra.
So soon there'll be two reasons to go to Jordan.
They will clash in the desert with phasers and lightsabers, and the rumbling of At-ATs will shake the valleys
What an astoundingly stupid idea. However as an entry in the "whoever dies with the most toys wins" category, I think we may have a winner...
...I do not remember the women of Str Trek wearing Bee Keeper outfits. I'm gonna have to watch some reruns now...sigh!
Since when is Jordan a "Gulf State"?
On the one hand, this is pretty cool, and the general values of Stark Trek (of which free thought and egalitarianism are pretty high on the list) are good things to promote in areas like Jordan. However, the fact that the monarch is already a Trekkie and yet is country is like what it is today doesn't speak highly of how much influence it has really had on him. (Jordan is not nearly as badly off as say Syria, but it is by no means a functioning democracy with human rights. Far from it.) Moreover, the people who go to this will almost certainly be outside tourists, whether Westerners, or rich people from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So this will probably do very little to directly benefit Jordanians, who have a lot of problems. Again, Jordan's problems aren't nearly as severe as many other countries in the region, the literacy rate is the second highest out of it and its immediate neighbors http://www.indexmundi.com/jordan/literacy.html but there's still a decent chunk of around 10% who can't read. And there's severe unemployment- this project might help with that, but it is tough to tell.
The fact that they are making the park green is noteworthy. Unlike many of the oil states in the region, Jordan's total oil reserve is comparatively small, but they do have a lot of oil shale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_in_Jordan which becomes more valuable as people run out of oil. So it isn't completely clear why Jordan would want to promote green tech other than actual ideology (well and self-interest for when everyone else's oil runs out and they still want their stuff to not be insanely expensive. But that's surprisingly far-sighed in the circumstances). It should be interesting to see where this goes in the next few years.
With that money and if I was a big Rabid fan. I would have made Life Size models, Inside and out of the Star Trek Ships. Not just some futuristic buildings.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...Arabs were more partial to Frank Herbert.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
Psh. I see your silly little AT-AT's and raise you 1 galaxy class federation starship. Hell, bring your "death star". I hear they got the fire rate on that up to like three shots per annum, when someone isn't tossing firecrackers in the hvac.
"Morning, gentlemen. This is your wakeup call. *button* "
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
That kind of money could buy how many new seasons of Firefly? Wow, what a thought! And more seriously, I don't think it would be a bad idea for rich sheiks who don't know what to do with their money to invest in something cultural and immortal like a smart scifi show. It would generate a whole lot of good will and visibility than some vanity theme park or a sign visible from space.
it just takes a few hundred million years to renew.
Considering their ships can't move at warp 2 a shuttle could decimate a death star.
Ensign: Captain. Those Star Wars guys have built another death star.
Captain: Sigh. Alright. Send another shuttle.
Most of the Jordanian population lives in the west, close to the Jordan river - not in the east. It is about a thousand miles from Amman (the capital) or Aqaba (the one port and the location of the park) to the Persian Gulf.
I think this is stimulus spending. Abdullah doesn't want to have the problems of his neighbors to the north (Syria) and south-west (Egypt).
With luck and really good security, they might be able to get a lot of tourists from Israel.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Hadn't heard about Jordan conquering one of its neighbors (Irak or Saudi Arabia) lately to make it a "Gulf state" (otherwise it would be at least 500 miles away from the Gulf), so I'm a bit surprised. Or is it just bad geography?
Resistance is futile.
Fight Spammers!
I think a lot of the appeal of park would be lost to Trekkies if the park just catered to Arabic speaking tourists. At the same time though, it's in an Arabic speaking country so it seems kind of odd for it be in English.
I guess it'll have to be bi-lingual in absence of universal translators. This situation just seems kind of odd to me in that American franchise would have a theme park catering to it in another part of the world.
mmmmmm....TOS miniskirt uniforms... even the purple-haired moonbabes at SHADO moonbase come in as a far second
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They're still using primitive lasers. Wouldn't even penatrate the shields
There is no -1 disagree
I would have thought for sure that this project would include building a hotel that is a 1:1 scale model of one of the Enterprises.
Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find (just like news for nerds)
Whatever happened to our love
I wish I understood
It used to be so nice, it used to be so good
So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me
SOS
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me
SOS
When you're gone (when you're gone)
How can I even try to go on
When you're gone (when you're gone)
Though I try how can I carry on
You seem so far away though you are standing near
You made me feel alive, but something died I fear
I really tried to make it out
I wish I understood
What happened to our love, it used to be so good
So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me
SOS
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me
SOS
When you're gone (when your gone)
How can I even try to go on
When you're gone (when your gone)
Though I try how can I carry on
So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me
SOS
And the love you gave me, nothing else can save me
SOS
When you're gone (when you're gone)
How can I even try to go on
When you're gone (when you're gone)
Though I try how can I carry on
When you're gone (when you're gone)
How can I even try to go on
When you're gone (when your gone)
Though I try how can I carry on
Tm
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Who seriously believes that nerds are going to fly in sufficient numbers to the middle east and spend enough money to justify spending a billion and a half dollars on a theme park? It's one of those ideas which is so fucking stupid it would take a king to greenlight it.
...it's good to be king!
Would make more sense than Firefly.
I love that somewhere there will be a Star Trek dedicated site of merit again. However, it will be interesting to see if the Political/Religous context of a Secular Humanist philosphy that is so paramount to the ST Universe will be downplayed on account that it is strictly speaking anathema to Islam (and most of the Big religions for that matter).
Cool anyway and better than building the worlds largest building (Saudi Arabia) but this money could've saved the JWT. Shame no do-gooding billionairs can fund it... that thing could answer fundamental questions about our universe, never been a project that advanced and now it's going to be scrapped. Having said that the Jordanian monarchy is going to collapse anyway, majority palestinian population who have no citizenship ruled by a british imposed hashemite minority family clan... it's like a south africa that nobody cares about.
In Jordan, for political reasons, the transporter is just called a porter.
Of course I'd bundle it into a larger trip that has me visiting some of the other winning cultural aspects of such a trip. Yet this is both too funny, and better yet so nerdy cool that there's no way I'd ever avoid all the potential dangers of travelling into such a region. Sign me on and "Beam me over, Scotty! LOL I'm so there - hope they actually do it real justice and have a real working transporting ride! ;)
And we wonder why gas is almost $4.00 a gallon..... This is where the money goes.
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
This is a 3 months old story ( see http://www.attractionsmanagement.com//detail1.cfm?pagetype=detail&subject=news&codeid=259883&site=AM).
What saddens me, is the fact that King Abdullah somehow is the cool guy "yeah he was an extra in ST episode, he is fluent in english and nice to the west". Nothing about his brutal politic to crack down on demonstrators in Jordan, in fact you won't find any news about that in most US/Western MSM. All is good and fine as long as he is good to the US and Israel.
Nothing inherently prevents a derivative work from being an improvement...
Except perhaps having a fanwork-banning copyright owner.
A battleship in a land battle? Bad idea. You will probably frag as many of your friendlies as you do the enemy.
This isn't a siege inside a Chicago office building we would be talking about here.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You would think that the $1.2 billion would have been better invested into a commercial space company like SpaceX.
Is this like the Crimson Permanent Assurance?
The Las Vegas Hilton Star Trek mockups, museum and rides were interesting, even with a $16 admission. But interested dwindled in tandem with no TV series and only one movie int he past eight years. And the closed it a few years ago.
Ok.. I have friends that are of Islam.. I'm not. But.. a "play on Moron in a round room.. and tell them Pee in a Corner." I believe many of the Islamic Faith are now growing in Education are Far from Idiots.. and the Extremisms the media likes to constantly look at are not a Fair Estimation of ALL of Islam. This being said.. I can joke with my Islamic Friends Who point themselves toward Mecca .. 5 times a day.. no matter where they are.. To pray.
What I wanna see.. is 5 Muslims in a space Craft 5 light years away.. in a Gravity building spin.. and Ask THEM to Pray 5 times a day..
- see's them running every 2 minutes to reposition towards Mecca over and over again.
Mooos leems In Space ... Space .. Space.. Space..
Sorry.. doesn't have any parody to Monte Pythons Jahadists in Space.. I was hunting.
I refuse to say anything wrong about Allah or Mohomed.. or their book either. I tried reading it.. odd book for westerners.. but has very pretty sections.
But before the New Guy gets Flamed or modded or called a Troll or anything..I can joke with those of Islamic background.. because they know I am not against them.. and they Don't like the extremists either. They Give the whole of them a bad name because of the Media. Let's kinda like.. Love one another..
On the Track of the real thread...
I would go to the New Theme Park.. Sounds cool. Arabic does look more like
Klingon though. Could really work for an Atmosphere thing.
I'd like to see what 1.5 Billion would get them in a Sci Fi Theme.
Might be worth Visiting.. Jordan is a Beautiful place !
Oh.. Heaven forbid they end up liking DUNE .
No way am I going to cross the Neutral Zone to visit a theme park even if it is a E ticket ride.
This issue has been thoroughly settled for years.
In case you're too lazy to follow the link, published figures have Slave-I substantially out-performing the Enterprise-D. To address the AC GP, Star Wars vessels routinely travel cross-galaxy in a matter of hours, while Star Trek vessels would take decades to travel across a significant fraction of the galaxy. I'm not the site's author, but I was thoroughly impressed with the analysis and technical knowledge brought to bear on the subject.
Dilithium crystals(radan) do not power anything, it's a regulator for the matter/anti-matter reaction. It's like saying the valves in a nuclear reactor power cities.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But, which side will they be on? Which side naturally fits their ideology?
{o.o}
Will Janeway be portrayed wearing a Tarp? What a waste of 7 of 9 as welll......
At least that will fix the ugly but on the forehead of B'ellanna Torres.
Lesson learned - always find time to cast the Crown Prince to be on your show, you never know when it'll pay off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmut6FJ1d4M Now we know what ??? is in step 3: wait for extra to become wealthy king.
No really try watching it. I'm halfway through the last season and like it better than Voyager and Enterprise.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The previous king was often the only voice of reason on matters pertaining to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He was the only one to criticize both sides when they deserved it. The current king was not the crown prince, but the previous king changed his choice of successor at the last minute. Thankfully, king Abdullah has continued his father's tradition.
King Abdullah did things in his youth that he probably would not have done were he the crown prince. Things like appearing as an extra in a Star Trek: TNG episode. I believe that makes him the only monarch on the planet ever to appear in a Star Trek episode. Clearly, he is more of a Star Trek fan than I thought, and good for him.
While I'd generally agree with some of that (SW ships definitely have the speed advantage), most of the figures cited there are silly. They have the heavy laser gun on a troop transport (a shuttle, basically) putting out enough energy to wipe out all life on the planet in a single shot... Makes the death star kind of redundant, don't it? Their scales are so far off that a single hit from any SW laser or turbolaser should completely incinerates whatever ship it hits if the shields are down, when there's tons and tons of canonical evidence to the contrary (damage is caused, but not as much as the numbers you link to indicate).
I suspect the reason for this is because when Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda were coming up with these figures, they probably consulted real-life figures and theory and extrapolated, while the author of Star Wars Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections probably just made up stuff that sounded good.
That's not a knock against Star Wars, it reflects a different focus. Star Wars was never about the tech.
I did go to that site and I'm afraid that's like the politicians saying "our policies are right, check this site for the proof" and then linking to their own site. I could link you to my proof, you can link your proof. I've had this discussion too many times, you've had this discussion too many times, do we really need to go into it?
There is no -1 disagree
Which was a boring. I don't know how many times I've tried watching this drivel and ended up rolling my eyes so much, I'd get dizzy.
Might get more Muslim visitors that way.
Bullshit cherry-picked "information" from non-canon publications of guesses somewhere. Movies make star wars looks weak? Use random print material. Print material don't make sense? Cherry pick 3 or 4 things from movies and tv shows. But in all cases, make sure you draw the same conclusion. I guess we could expect as much from StarDestroyer.net.
Site is a puff piece. PS - Star Wars is gay now. Deal with it.
One of the other middle eastern countries builds a star wars theme park. They will then be suicide bombing eachother over religion and star wars vs star trek. It will be total chaos over there worse than it is now. George lucas will be on tv begging for peace and obama will invade the middle east again to claim both theme parks so his kids get to use them free of charge and change the names of them to obama land and not let anyone in them but himself.
But in the end, 1.5billion dollars used in a country like jordan and its to build a theme park? What a waste.
I love that article for the F-15 SE II reference. I used to play that on my Turbo XT (!) and loved how the F-15 could take more hits than the A-10 in Tank Killer.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Hamad!
I've actually never had a Star Wars vs Star Trek discussion. I stumbled across the site through some Slashdot posting years ago. If you have a site which is similarly rigorous, I'd love to see it.
really no more comment needed if it isn't for the lameness filter.
Well I find this site far less biased than any other site that I've seen, one way or the other. Both sides have their advantages
There is no -1 disagree
I suspect the reason for this is because when Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda were coming up with these figures, they probably consulted real-life figures and theory and extrapolated, while the author of Star Wars Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections probably just made up stuff that sounded good.
Star Wars Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections was authored in part by Dr. Curthis Saxton, who holds a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Sydney. I can't comment on how he came up with the figures. Even if you ignore the books, which is fair, the Empire comes out on top, at least according to the site. I'm not a mechanical engineer, so I have trouble arguing against his analysis.
I wonder what the admission charge will be? If they get 1000 visitors each paying $1.5M apiece they'd be able to break even. Likewise if they get 10,000 visitors paying $150,000 each. BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
And yet I would not want to take my family there, even to see Petra. Will this help in their progress toward human rights?
I can't wait for them to discover charity.
Pish. Both universes have ships moving at the Speed of Plot.
Yes, but the Speed of Plot required for SW significantly outpaces the Speed of Plot required for ST. A trivial answer to what is ultimately a trivial question :P
I want to be the first in line on the 7of9 ride..
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
Here's what he looked like in the episode
welcome our oil-rich Middle-Eastern trekkie overlord!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
>>It looks like Sci-fi has finally made it to the Middle East.
Oh, that's where sci-fi went after it was replaced with syfy...
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tex-ass, Tamaulipas, VeraCruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, Quintana Roo and Cuba ?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I suspect the reason for this is because when Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda were coming up with these figures, they probably consulted real-life figures and theory and extrapolated, while the author of Star Wars Episode II Incredible Cross-Sections probably just made up stuff that sounded good.
Actually I think some of the figures were calculated using evidence from the movies and some basic assumptions and math. Like, there's a scene where you see a Star Destroying shooting asteroids and instantly vaporizing them. Making some reasonable calculations from the frame and the scale and using the asteroid's appearance to approximate it's makeup... you end up with a ridiculous amount of energy required to vaporize it.
Or take the Death Star -- the amount of energy needed to make an earth-sized planet explode with the chunks flying apart at tremendous velocity making it highly unlikely they would ever coalesce again requires just stupid amounts of energy.
You can hand-wave the effects on unshielded ships by saying they're using super-alloys or whatever, but really it's just inconsistent. The basic problem is like you said, Star Wars was not about the tech it was about the experience and so things it depicts as normal imply ridiculously powerful weaponry if you try to put them into real terms.
it's just you kinda have to do that in order to do this ST vs SW thing, and the simple fact is that based on what's depicted on screen Star Wars weapons really are many orders of magnitude more powerful than Star Trek ones.
The enemies of Democracy are
Come on google...mount a camera on a camel.
I remember when MOD was an audio format, and DOS wasn't a network attack....
And it isn't the rest of the civilized world .. those that made those 'people' rich beyond imagination over the last 30 years or so.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I always wondered why they never showed the Death Star going into hyperspace. It obviously has hyperdrive, since it zips from system to system pretty quickly.
For that matter, couldn't the Empire have just jumped within range of the Rebel base after arriving at Yavin? Maybe they were just overconfident that one orbit would be plenty of time to wipe out the Rebels?
I always wondered why they never showed the Death Star going into hyperspace. It obviously has hyperdrive, since it zips from system to system pretty quickly.
I don't think they showed *anything* going into hyperspace until RotJ, presumably due to budgetary constraints.
For that matter, couldn't the Empire have just jumped within range of the Rebel base after arriving at Yavin? Maybe they were just overconfident that one orbit would be plenty of time to wipe out the Rebels?
In books, it's impossible to jump into or out of hyperspace within a gravity well, i.e., too close to a planet. I'm pretty sure this concept is an after-the-fact justification for that plot point
Either he could try to make a series to get onto television. Or he could do the fan series thing like Star Trek Phase II.
Jordon is not a Gulf state
Sure they did, the Millennium Falcon. That was one of those "whoa!" moments in the first film that blew audiences away!
Psh. I see your silly little AT-AT's and raise you 1 galaxy class federation starship. Hell, bring your "death star". I hear they got the fire rate on that up to like three shots per annum, when someone isn't tossing firecrackers in the hvac.
"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the potential of the Force. "
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon