Dispatch Ajax! Podcast

To celebrate Star Trek's 60th Anniversary we thought we'd present a series of both old and new episodes that cover a wide swath of Trek topics. First up, an early show we did about the economics of the universe and how commerce works when you don't have money. 

'Ever wonder how the economy of Star Trek works?  Well, we'll break down the complicated concept of Future Money (or the lack there-of) in sci-fi's most enduring legacy franchise.  This will be the first in a reoccurring series of Trek Talks on this topic and many others for your listening pleasure! 

Hubba Hubba Hubba, Money Money Money, Who do You Trust?'

Comic shops can feel welcoming and hostile at the same time, mostly because the language is a maze. We break that maze into simple, usable terms so you can walk in knowing what to ask for, what you’re looking at on the shelves, and how to avoid the classic awkward moments at the counter.

Walking into a comic book store shouldn’t feel like you need a password, but the jargon can make it that way fast. We’ve both worked behind the counter, so we’re translating the terms that confuse new readers and frustrate casual shoppers, without the gatekeeping. If you’ve ever wondered what a floppy is, why new issues drop on Wednesdays, or why someone side-eyes the phrase “graphic novel,” we’ve got you.

In a classic and timely episode on Artificial Intellegence we wrestle with the personhood problem. If a replicant can feel fear, build memories, form attachments, and fight to live, what exactly makes them “less than” besides a corporate definition, a programmed lifespan, or a society that needs someone to do the jobs humans don’t want? That question echoes into the real world, where legal systems and public stunts can gesture at “rights” without resolving the deeper ethical mess.

In a classic - yet timely - episode we continue digging in to what we call Artificial Intellegence these days and what it's been throughout pop culture. We sort through the terms people blur together, like consciousness, sentience, and self-awareness, and lay out common indicators researchers look for, from internal world models to self-monitoring. 

An animal companion isn’t just cute, loyal, or marketable. The best ones force a moral choice, expose a character’s blind spot, or act like nature’s voice when humans get too comfortable with their own excuses. We dig into why animal companions in fantasy and science fiction keep landing so hard, and why the trope feels bigger than a sidekick.

While we're deal with some crazy life stuff we thought we'd revisit a rapidly changing topic in Artificial Intelligence. We walk through the foundations that make AI feel inevitable: formal reasoning, the Church Turing thesis, early neural network ideas, and the Turing test as our most famous shortcut for judging “intelligence.” Along the way, we hit the hype cycles and turning points, from early chess machines and the coining of the word robot to research booms, AI winter, and the moment responsive machines become normal in American homes. 

Why do pets and animal companions in fiction feel so immediate, so universally legible, and so devastating when a story takes them away?

We pull threads from everywhere, comic book pets like Krypto, the daemon companions of His Dark Materials, and the long mythic history of loyal animals that reveal a hero’s character. From Odysseus and Argus to the Mahabharata’s stray dog test, we track what separates a true companion from a symbol or a beast of burden: mutual attachment, choice, and the kind of love that costs something.

Bigfoot in space, Krampus as a demonic Christmas weapon, a clone of Alistair Crowley, reptilian Stalin, Satan pulling strings, and a title card that promises a fight that may never happen. That’s not a mad lib we wrote, it’s the kind of chaos you can trip over on Tubi when the autoplay algorithm decides you’re ready for BC Fourteen.

We go beyond the handle, the pseudonyms, the surprisingly normal “working creator” backstory, and the pivot from horror shorts and writing into kid-friendly projects and then adult animated “versus” movies. From there, we unpack the most unhinged loglines in the BC Fourteen cinematic universe, including Bigfoot vs. Krampus and the larger web of Trump vs. the Illuminati style entries that seem engineered for discoverability on streaming.

* Redownload if necessary*

Greetings, fellow traveller. For our Sci-Fi Channel series finale we bring you Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, a short-lived but brilliant British parody show that never really got its due. 

(Sorry we were a little late on this episode, but Jake and I both had some pretty serious life stuff happen. Trying to get back on track.)

We break down what makes the mockumentary format work so well, from the talking-head commentary to the show-within-a-show mechanics that let the creators land jokes at multiple levels at once. Along the way, we talk about the people who make it sing: Matthew Holness building an entire career-long bit as Garth, Richard Ayoade’s razor control as Dean Lerner, Matt Berry’s instantly recognizable voice work, and Alice Lowe’s deliberately sidelined role that sharpens the satire. We also trace the project’s stage roots, the specific TV influences that shaped it, and why the “lost VHS” framing turns cheap production into a feature rather than a flaw.