Marshall Barnes Waxes Massive Dynamic and Scares off One Klingon, Makes Fan of Another

by Amy Wolfe © 2009 Hudson Net Newswires (Redistribution Granted with HNNEWS Attribution)

May 23rd Columbus, Ohio: Attendance was light the opening evening of the MarCon sci-fi convention here at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Oh. Like most gatherings of its kind, there were storm troopers, Daleks, Klingons (but not Romulans), a variety of Harry Potter clones and a spattering of faiery princesses and anime femme fatales. Unlike most was the fact that Marshall Barnes was here, the well noted maverick research and development engineer and ex-rock video wizard. It was his first in a series of talks for the weekend which have been promoted around the internet as must sees. A handful of people did turn up to see his first one, not bad considering the light overall turnout and the fact that other presentations were happening simultaneously.

The Real Massive Dynamic Is On Its Way was the title of the evening's presentation and Marshall was looking rested and relaxed as he explained what Massive Dynamic is and why it's almost here. It's the name of a fictitious company on the Fox TV program, Fringe, which deals with X-File like plots that involve research into the extreme fringes of science, an area that Marshall happens to be an expert in. On the program, Massive Dynamic is a huge and powerful corporation that is involved in the very edge of the cutting edge of science and technology. There is even a fake website for it online that appears as if the company is real http://www.massivedynamic.com/ . Not too unlike his 2007 presentation, This Is Not A Test http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/news_message?Category=forum&ThemeID=879&GroupID=234797&InReplyTo=68852 , where he outlined a futuristic research and development agenda of things that people didn't even know were possible but half of which he had already accomplished or was in various stages of completion, he laid out a historical time line for how he had originally envisioned a company like Massive Dynamic, which for him came from the inspiration provided by the late 1980s British rock band Sigue,Sigue Sputnik which he illustrated with their video for 21st Century Boy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28hFIxgtv0o
. The group was known for its high camp but it was its concept of the Sputnik corporation that had its hands in music, video games, real estate, media, and all the rest of it that made him think of eventually doing something on that scale. His entertainment industry background already allowed him the opportunity to prove his prowess in music video and special effects, musical effects technology and he had experience in designing video laser disc games as well. But it was his foray into the still uncharted area of psychoactive entertainment that began to indicate that he was actually approaching genius level.

Seeing the Breykiot was the world's first and still only rock video album that could get the viewer high. News clips from local stations and even Canada's Much Music, where Marshall was being interviewed about his creation in 1990, was all it took to convince the audience that this was no ordinary mortal. It was also all it took to convince one Klingon in attendance to leave. The intense of effects from just the scenes shown in the news clips was more than he could handle.

"It didn't make me sick or anything, I just didn't like the effect," he later said out in the hall way after Marshall made sure he was OK. It seems that the psychoactive effects are not good for photo sensitive epileptics, but for some people, experiencing the visual blitzkrieg of sight and sound (which rivals anything from the 1960s) is an experience that they aren't equipped to handle. That being said, everyone else was not only fine but now eager to hear more and more is exactly what they got.

Marshall explained that he has been twiddling his thumbs since the 1990s. He's established his own scientific study of the effects of things on human consciousness, what he calls technocogninetics, and has not only developed a mass array of psychoactive products that are being readied for the global marketplace, but has been developing the plotlines of sci-fi movies like Brain Storm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VardFGDZPu4
, Strange Days
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yaXPx6xWEQ
, and The 13th Floor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyqOQ9vxvyw&feature=relatedas potential products to be commercially exploited. His almost 30 years of research has given him an edge in that area which had one member in the audience asking when he would begin issuing stock so that she could invest.

"That's the thing," he related. "Right now I'm doing things on a per project basis with different kinds of financial structures, but I could end up doing it all under one big corporate structure if I had enough money and incentive to go that route. The audience seemed to feel that eventually that opportunity would present itself, especially after hearing how he not only has the capability to give someone an experience like a virtual vacation that was depicted in the movie Total Recall, but now has the commercial marketing of it figured out for nationwide and eventually global exploitation - by selling the service through travel agents. This gives him a large sales force with no overhead and a nationwide reach that could be expanded beyond that, once the service and technology is perfected. All one would do is call a travel agent to book an experience, arrive at an airport terminal where the service is provided (that choice of location is said to reinforce the psychological expectation of the simulated trip), where they are greeted and then seated in the device that provides the experience. Two to three hours later, they emerge with the memories of having been on a vacation and if they preselected what shops they wanted to visit, they would have souvenirs waiting for them but with the memories of having made the purchases themselves.

Before he was through, Marshall had talked about other technologies that he is involved with that go as far as devices that could influence time itself, promising to later in the weekend to do a presentation on his prototype for warp drive, called the STDTS, that has gotten much notice on the web. At the end he saw another Klingon in the audience who had just arrived to prepare to take part in another panel in the same room. Marshall leaned over and said that he hoped he hadn't cut into his time. The Klingon smiled and replied, "Oh no. In fact, I was enjoying your talk. I wish I had seen more".