Summer Glau Presents to the NSA People
PrevNode LinkNextGathering Everyone
Node LinkNext[ SGlau enters the NSA building, and puts some of her clothes on the colar.
She walks to Richard’s office. ]
SGlau: Hi, Richard. I’m back.
Richard: Oh, hi, Summer. Is there anything I can do for you?
SGlau: As a matter of fact - yes. Can you gather the folks here, or at least some of them, to the conference room? I’d like to give a talk.
Richard: Hmmm… we are supposed to be working.
SGlau: Work, work, work… what do you achieve at work?
Richard: Not a lot, actually. The more I work, the less I achieve.
SGlau: Heh, I am only too familiar with this symptom. [She flicks her hair.]
SGlau: What do you say to get everyone to take a break by hearing my talk?
Richard: [Thinks for a moment] Fine, I will tell them we have an important guest — it won’t be a lie…
[ SGlau laughs. Cut. ]
The Talk
PrevNode LinkIntroducing Summer Glau
Node LinkNext[ An NSA conference room. Richard is standing on the stage. SGlau set up the camera to film the talk on the table, and connected her tablet to the projector. ]
Richard: OK, people, this is our special guest who will present a talk - Ms. Summer Glau, the Hollywood television actress.
[ Some grumbling from the crowd, due to surprise, along with some unenthusiastic applause. ]
SGlau: Thank you, Richard. OK, my talk today will be about lots of random stuff, but it should be a fun talk and you’ll see its theme soon enough.
David and Goliath
PrevNode LinkNextSGlau: Let’s start:… [The screen shows a photo of David and Goliath.]
SGlau: yes, David and Goliath.
SGlau: The Israelites and the Philistines schedule a large battle. The Philistines have far superior equipment with armours made out of iron, which the Israelites don’t have. Eventually, Goliath, a tall Philistine giant, steps forward and asks for an Israelite man worthy enough to fight him and determine the fate of the battle (something which was quite common in the ancient Near East). It seems the Israelites will lose the battle.
SGlau: Out of nowhere, a young Israelite boy whom hardly anyone knew about steps forward with a sling and a few pebbles. Goliath thinks this is ridiculous and ridicules him. However, the boy quickly puts a pebble in his sling, and after rotating the sling to achieve a very large speed (not unusual with slings) hurls the pebble with great accuracy (also not unthinkable, because shepherds in the Near East effectively used slings to kill lions and other predators to their flock) into Goliath’s face, which was uncovered to allow him to see. Even if Goliath’s shield bearer wanted to, he could not lift the huge shield in time, and Goliath was completely not agile in his suit and armour. The sling’s rock smashes Goliath’s brain, and he falls to the ground dead. The Israelites have won the battle.
SGlau: That boy’s name was David.
SGlau: Why is it important here? Because David was a “hacker”, and I realise that that term possibly triggers a lot of fear here. Why was he a hacker? Because he knew the rules, and played by them, but knew how to bend them, in order to earn his victory. Hackers bend the rules.
SGlau: And here’s the thing: this is what an action hero is all about: he makes his own rules, even breaks them, and does not accept his fate. This is whereas a tragic hero is bound by many invisible rules, and accepts his fate, which is — almost certainly — death.
SGlau: And in real life, you should also aim to be a hacker, or an action hero, or the many phrases it used to be called.
[ There’s some enthusiastic hand clapping from the audience. ]
SGlau: Thank you. OK, let’s move on.
A Gun in Each Hand
PrevNode LinkNext[ Fade to black. Cut. Fade in. ]
SGlau: You may have seen a photo of me with a gun in each hand, and I actually trained myself to shoot using two guns simultaneously.
SGlau: Part of the process was learning to shoot using my left hand, and then combining them. It was time consuming, but doable.
SGlau: Whatever you do, you should realise to never shoot while you’re running. You only see it in movies, but in real life, it’s a spectacularly bad idea.
Amateur Fighters
PrevNode Link[ Fade to black. Cut. Fade in. ]
SGlau: In The Three Musketeers, Dumas tells the story of how d’Artagnan who is a young swordsman without much of an official training, from a remote region of France, eventually becomes the best fighter in France. This is despite the fact that his peers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, have much more experience and training.
SGlau: It may seem farfetched, but before the industrialisation of the Far East, and the way the West interpreted martial arts, with the coloured belts and all, there were regional masters of these arts, who practised them as much as they could and honed their skills. However, despite all that, they never ruled out that they would one day fight against someone who never faught before, and lose.
SGlau: I can attest to it from my experience. I have been training in martial arts for years, and part of what I do is instruct kids in the martial arts. A lot of them seem happy to get a chance to fight against someone famous like me, and doing that in Southern California like that is good for the ego. And: it’s also good publicity. [The Audience laughs.]
SGlau: Now, most kids just want to learn the moves and fight in the proper way, but there’s a minority of disobedient kids: they disrespect the rules, improvise moves, and they are strong and agile.
SGlau: And as surprising as it sounds, I have so far lost three rounds to such kids, all of them boys, despite my years of training and experience. I have yet to find a girl (probably a tomboy) who will achieve that, but I’m still hopeful that it will happen one day, heh. [Claps from the audience]
[ The door opens. Voice from back of the camera - General Keith B. Alexander . ]
General Alexander’s Voice: Hey, what’s going on here? Get back to work! And who might you be?
[ Cut. ]