Then it skitters up Furie's arm and out of his gentle control.
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You're rag-dolling around the cockpit while your plane skitters across the runway.
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But it kind of rolls over Mbappé's feet and skitters out of play.
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He kicks at the base of the cement observation tower and a stone skitters.
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Willem Dafoe skitters through the role of Mad Dog, the paranoid, drug-fueled loose cannon.
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Another customer sucks a mango smoothie as a shiny hand-sized scorpion skitters across his table.
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They slap their tails so loud a sound like falling dice skitters the smooth, unfrozen surface of the pond.
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It begins as a romantic tragedy, unfolds as a melancholy country-house comedy, then skitters back to tragedy again.
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In the first section, the youthful figure in white skitters from one group to the next, as if seeking a blessing.
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At other points, async is discordant and disquieting, with pieces sometimes consisting of nothing but electronically manipulated percussion that skitters and clangs.
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An audio guide features a newly commissioned musical score, by the jazz musician Jim O'Rourke, that gently skitters like the mobiles overhead.
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If the jokes land, does it matter so much that the framework is skimpy and the promised history skitters away from real danger?
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This stands out as one of the final "classic" Celtic Frost albums, because post- Pandemonium, the band's career trajectory skitters into wholly unexpected territory.
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Skitters of synth lines reflect like blinding sunlight off a frozen tundra, with sensorial bursts that feel like warmth and light amidst more frosty environs.
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After finishing the Epistles set, Mr. Ibrahim began the wafting original "Sotho Blue" on solo piano, a few bebop skitters giving way to impressionist arpeggios.
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Her prose skitters along with her own insecurities, becoming thin and abstract rather than rich with the details of her engagement in the gritty work she clearly loves.
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As the lithe Ms. Lovette skitters across the stage with tiny walks on point and her hand to her mouth, her shapes somehow evoke the voice's whispery inflection.
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Actually, you know when a boxer's face is on the receiving end of a haymaker, and sweat skitters into the air: the boxer in this case is Gruchy's tongue.
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She skitters around the house and eventually the neighborhood, both evading Barry and dealing damage, leaving him with a gaping knife wound in his shoulder that will require stitches.
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The problem is that the script skitters over the surface of too many of these ideas—the cult, the romance, the characters—like a skimming stone over a frozen pond.
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The most impressive of these is the Baba Yaga, who skitters like a spider with broken legs — bones snapping and popping at each maneuver — and whose skin resembles spoiled yogurt.
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In one, a humanoid creature with a head resembling a ball of white twine and an ovular black blob of a body skitters in front of a burning red cityscape.
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"Long Shot" humorously skitters over these and other hurdles, including the imperative that powerful single women must have men by their side, mostly to make everyone feel comfortable with all that female power.
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What touched me in "Café Müller" was the 62-year-old Nazareth Panadero as the woman who skitters around bewildered in heels, a role she has been performing for more than three decades.
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Sweden earns a promising free kick, but Forsberg hoofs it into the wall and it skitters off, wide of the post Blerim Dzemaili sends one over the bar and holds his head in frustration.
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There's a whole lot of everything in the "Mission: Impossible — Fallout," an entertainment machine par excellence that skitters around the world and has something to do with nuclear bombs, mysterious threats and dangerous beauties.
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The movie shrewdly leads with comedy — it has belly laughs and zingers — even as it skitters over, and at times dives into, questions of diversity and sexism in entertainment industry, including from other women.
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At nightfall she unfolds her canny wings and skitters to her work, sweeping through the skies, circling under the streetlights, clearing the air of moths whose larvae eat our trees, sweeping up all the whining, stinging creatures we swat at in the dark.
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"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," which had its first preview in London on Tuesday, begins with the final scene from "Deathly Hallows" and skitters rapidly forward a few years, sketching out Albus's feelings of alienation both from Hogwarts and from his famous father.
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"Judy" is based on Peter Quilter's play "End of the Rainbow," which had a well-received Broadway run in 2012 and skitters between Judy ripping her heart out in a London hotel and at the theater where she will become the talk of the town.
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Most striking of all is the "we" voice of the ogbanje, which skitters frenetically across the page, all id and godlike grandeur: It's just alien enough to sound like a foreign presence in a human being's head, but human enough that its resonances linger.
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There are a lot of weeks with multiple Friday nights so that Rory and Lorelai can have multiple Friday night dinners with Emily and Richard; the timeline of Rory and Lorelai's life before the show begins skitters wildly around so that in some episodes they've lived in Stars Hollow since Rory was 6 and in some since she was 12.
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For about a minute, as Jordan, the articulate middle-aged subject of the film, speaks about his own condition, the music skitters and booms, rapid jump cuts intensify the sense of danger, and in this swelling moment of uncertainty, the viewer experiences a fleeting sense of what it might be like to live in a condition of permanent, anxious neural flood.
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Cowes By Christina Aitken Atduskshe flipson the sandthe sun slips past hershadowed arms welcoming the dark Melbourne By Kelly Hill You and Istroll hand in handalong a much-trampled pathcrushed rocks shifting beneath our feetwhile all around useucalyptus sway and dancetheir fragrance moves through the airmasses of banksiaa feast for the eyesi watch the bees flit from each bronzed brushand the leukodendronunfolding like starsbeside delicate clematis bloomswe stop at a bridgelistenas water skitters over a jagged creek beda gentle melodyholds me closeas a kookaburra's voicequakes in the distanceglacial windgrows in strengthas we huddle togetheryoulike alwayskeeping me from veering off the pathcaptivatedby birds of every coloursinging tributes to the trees.
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Originally thought to be the alien species responsible for invading Earth, the Skitters are a race under the control by the Overlords. Their home-world was subjugated by the Overlords and the Skitters were harnessed just like the children of Earth. Some Skitters have been able to overcome their controllers and plot rebellions against the Overlords.
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Clayton explains to Rick that like soldiers in a human army, each detachment of Skitters has its own assigned regions and sectors, and each has its own quotas to fill; in their case, the number of human children they are expected to capture and harness. The force of Skitters that nearly wiped out the 7th Mass decided that if their quota was being met or even surpassed, it didn't really matter to them that the remaining handful of the 7th Mass and their families were still free. So the Skitters offered Clayton an arrangement in which he'd collaborate with them, let the remnant of the 7th mass serve as a trap to quietly collect refugee human children, and in return the Skitters would leave his men and their families alone. Mike decides that it's time for the 2nd Mass to leave the Sanctuary.
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He tells Mike how horrible it was to witness the 7th Mass be taken down. Clayton says that one of the kids, a girl named Megan, fell behind and was taken by Skitters. After that, the aliens left his team alone for a week. Clayton describes the behavior as though the Skitters were thanking them for Megan, for handing over one of their own.
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He points out that robots humans created were made to look human, with two legs, yet the Skitters' mechs also have two legs, despite a Skitter having six. Tom theorizes the Skitters may have studied Earth before the invasion, and deployed bipedal machines as a form of psychological intimidation. After running in to Lourdes, Karen talks to Hal about her intention. Hal doesn't seem to care about Lourdes and kisses Karen.
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While getting food, Margaret meets Sarah, a pregnant civilian. Later, Scott tells Tom that he can try and pick up a Skitter transmission on his radio as the Skitters communicate using radio waves, as an early warning system that Skitters are nearby. However, just one Skitter in the hospital will not be transmitting. Weaver hears a record that Scott is playing and it clearly brings up a distasteful memory.
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They discover that while the Skitters have tough leathery skin and carapace armor, their internal structure isn't that much different from terrestrial vertebrates, including an endoskeleton, cardio-vascular system, and nervous system. Anne then confirms her fears when she saws through the armored carapace of the Skitter's back, and finds that it has a harness attached to its spine, identical in structure to the ones attached to the human children. The implications to Anne are clear: the Skitters were themselves harnessed, and might not always have been Skitters. Particularly because the harness was found within their outer carapace, it seems that they used to be some other kind of lifeform, captured by the tall humanoid aliens who used the harnesses to mutate them into shock-troops.
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Three months have passed since Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) boarded the spacecraft, and the 2nd Mass has been on the move. In the opening scene, a small group, part of the 2nd Mass, led by Captain Weaver (Will Patton), attack a group of Skitters and Mechs patrolling the streets. Ben Mason (Connor Jessup), who was captured by the Skitters months earlier, has since grown to despise the extra terrestrials. Weaver orders the group to cease fire and conserve ammo.
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It also focusses on the discovery that the Skitters are themselves "harnessed" and mind-controlled by the invaders, but that some of them are resistant to the effects and are rebelling against their Overlords.
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During the attack on an Overlord weapon, the location of which had been provided by the rebel Skitters, Tom, Weaver, Hal, Ben, Maggie and Anne are captured by Karen and her Overlord master. While torturing them to find out what they know, Karen reveals to Tom that Anne is pregnant with his child. Before she can inflict harm on either of them, Tom says that he will talk. At that moment, the rebel Skitters attack and free the humans while taking care of the Overlord's forces.
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Clayton tells them that he must take the kids of the 2nd Mass because Skitters are on their way and a move from the school is necessary. Tom is very reluctant against this move. Margaret, while getting medication from Anne for her friend, Sarah, gives Anne a gun for future protection and offers a shooting lesson. Ben seems to be recovering well as he performs 102 push-ups without breaking a sweat. He tells Matt that the Skitters cared for the kids and weren’t monsters, but a family.
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When given the option of joining forces with the approaching Skitter rebellion, Manchester refuses and eventually orders that all members of the 2nd Mass be arrested. However, General Cole Bressler (Matt Frewer), the commander of Charleston's resistance force, mounts a coup and deposes Manchester. Tom facilitates dialogue between the rebel Skitters and the humans, resulting in a plot to assassinate the Overlord that was briefly captured by the 2nd Mass. The 2nd Mass is forced to work with the Skitters with no help from Bressler or his men.
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Tom, Hal, Karen, Dai and Mike go to find Ben. Tom and Mike hide behind rubble. Mike sees his son and runs toward him, despite the danger of the Mechs and Skitters. Mike grabs his son and Tom destroys a Mech.
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A swarm of Skitters and Mechs attempts to cross the bridge and attack the fighters. Tom slows them down by firing at them. Tom then runs, attempting to cross back. The 2nd Mass had planned to blow up the bridge.
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However, while the Skitters communicate at radio- frequencies, their communications only have roughly the same range as a human voice, so the captured Skitter cannot alert the other aliens. Anne attempts to perform an autopsy on the old Skitter corpse from Pope's hideout, but it has been dead for too long, and the insides have already rotted into "mush." As the gang prepares to leave the motorbike store, Pope knocks Dai out and escapes on a motorcycle. He goes back to the sleeping Skitters and blows them up with a few grenades attached to a can of gasoline.
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While scouting the Skitter command tower in downtown Boston, Tom, Hal and Weaver spy a tall, humanoid alien species directing Skitters. They appear to be the "officers" or master- race commanding or controlling the Skitters. Tom theorizes that the reason they haven't seen them before is because in a normal military occupation, high-ranking officers don't expose themselves in open territory until they feel confident that they've secured a region. Weaver, who used to run a construction business, observes the alien tower and notes that both the aliens construction techniques and building materials are fairly imitative of those found on Earth.
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With the escape plan now in motion, Tom is now pursued by skitters and Pope is forced to scale the fence when Dingaans hand is injured, meanwhile Hal waits with the ghetto residents in the tunnels. With the fence now down, Tom leads the skitters to the building and blows it up and jumps into the water in triumph. That night, Tom reunites with Hal and the group and then thanks Pope for his part in the escape. Now on the run from the Espheni and faced with increasing Beamer patrols, Tom arrives at the Volm hideout in an abandoned warehouse and is immediately greeted by Cochise.
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After this, Weaver tells his soldiers that the Skitter needs to die. Anne asks for more time to study it and Weaver gives her 24 hours. Hal speaks to Rick who sits quietly on a bench outside. Hal asks him about the "harness" and the Skitters.
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Skitters once part of the Rebellion, but now captured and controlled into mindless drones. They have the ability to fly. They are massive in size and covered in engorged, tumor-like growths. Unlike their less-evolved kin, they have blue eyes, have four wings, and an elongated tail.
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Tom begins having nightmares about the Skitters recapturing him. A parasite is found in Tom's eye, forcing him to question his own loyalty. The 2nd Mass has to find a way to cross a destroyed bridge. Ben offers to cross the river alone to scout the area ahead.
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They fire back but are stopped by Terry Clayton, a member of the 7th Mass. The family runs away and gives back the medicine. Clayton meets with Tom, Weaver and Mike, all of whom seem to know him. Clayton tells them that the 7th Mass is no more as they were attacked by Skitters.
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Clayton talks to Weaver and Tom after the attack and tells them that the next attack could happen soon. Weaver tells Tom that Clayton’s offer has to be reconsidered. Tom agrees. Ben is verbally attacked by an angry citizen who calls him a “razor-back” and the Skitters are attacking because of kids like him.
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The Harnesses are permanently disabled when Alexis Glass-Mason destroys the Espheni power core along with all other Espheni technology. Though de-Harnessed, Ben Mason still retains the spikes from the Harness and the enhanced abilities granted by it. It also allows him to communicate with the Espheni and Skitters and use the Espehni Shadow Plane device.
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Along the way Tom learns that the Dornians were the first race the Espheni destroyed, and the skitters that they've been fighting were once Dornians until the Espheni transformed them into their servants. Pope and Sara begin a romance that is short-lived when she is stuck and killed in an Espheni trap; Pope blames Tom for her death when he chose to destroy a facility that was mass-producing skitters instead of saving her. Tom, sick of Pope's constant complaining and vitriol, kicks him out of the 2nd Mass; several others including Anthony go with him. The 2nd Mass come across a naval station currently occupied by a group of soldiers under the command of female captain named Katie Marshall with whom Weaver once had a relationship.
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Falling Skies begins six months after a global invasion by extraterrestrials, where in early days, the invaders neutralized the world's power grid and technology, defeated and largely destroyed all the world's militaries, and killed over 90% of the human population by destroying all of the world's major cities and capitals. The aliens include mechanical attack drones called "mechs"; a species of light brown-skinned six-legged beings known as "Skitters" that appear to control the mechs; and a mysterious species known as the Overlords, or "Espheni", presumably the actual engineers of the invasion and the masters of the Skitters. The aliens' objectives are not explained until season 4. They plan to extract helium-3 from Earth's moon to power their technology, and to use humanity as an enslaved frontline army in their war with another alien race.
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Anne realizes this means that the harnessed children are being slowly mutated, either into Skitters or something like them. While returning to base, the scouting team meets a strange woman (Blair Brown) that invites them into her home. Tom and Hal take up her offer while Weaver guards their motorbikes. While inside, Weaver takes off, having removed the spark plugs on Tom and Hal's bikes.
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Are parasitic creatures which allow other races to completely control the wearer. It was not known that these were their own creature (and not just a piece of bio-mechanical equipment) until season 2. Their real names are chemlocks according to Red Eye, the leader of the Skitter Rebellion. In Season 4 a new type of harness is featured, used to mutate human adults into humanoid skitters.
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Matt is given the responsibility of monitoring communications on the radio. On their hunt for bikes, the group see a group of Skitters sleeping upside down like bats. Pope wants to shoot them down, but Tom decides to leave them alone after Dai reports that there are Mechs nearby. Anne starts to give the Skitter water to drink as Harris walks in with the dead Skitter that Pope and his gang killed.
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When the Skitter does not begin communicating with Mike, Mike thrusts his gun into the Skitter's mouth. The Skitter falls unconscious to the ground. Harris tells Anne and Mike that he found a "pressure point" near the Skitter's soft palate. Anne notices that interference came onto the radio both times the Skitter was provoked and theorizes that Skitters may have "radios in their heads" that they use to communicate with each other.
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Alissa Simon of Variety magazine stated that Bad Family has a "perversely fascinating start" after which the "darkly comic psychodrama goes plain psycho". She commended the "serious thesping by the three principals" for suggesting "psychological depth" but concluded that "the script eventually leaves them high and dry" and that "[Bad Family] loses its way at the midpoint, becoming a tonal roller-coaster that skitters to a stop."Simon, Alissa. Bad Family, Variety, February 14, 2010.
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The second Mass witnesses explosions in the distance and assume a resistance. When they arrive they find only destroyed Mech and charred skitters. Hal sees a former harnessed child under the debris with glowing spikes, he digs the child out assuming it to be Ben. It is revealed to be Rick -- the child who betrayed the 2nd Mass by giving attack plans to the aliens just before the attack on the tower.
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Bipedal robotic drones that fight alongside the Skitters. Destroyed Mechs are entirely mechanical inside, so there is no "pilot", implying they are unmanned drones. Ones who control mechs can put them into guard/patrol mode, give special orders violating their usual protocol and assign priority targets. These commands are followed even if the commander is dead implying that they have primitive A.I. that allows them to some extent think on their own.
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The next night Jimmy and Ben, who have been going out beyond the perimeter looking for aliens, find another group of skitters. They kill two of them but the third one exerts some influence over Ben and paralyzes him, causing his spikes to glow blue. Jimmy attacks the alien, and is thrown against a tree. The alien runs off and Ben snaps out of his daze, and finds that Jimmy was impaled on a branch.
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"Grace" is the fourth episode of the first season of the TNT science fiction drama Falling Skies, which originally aired July 3, 2011. The episode was written by Melinda Hsu Taylor and directed by Fred Toye. Tom and his team are sent to scout out an old motorcycle shop, and Weaver insists he take Pope along. After arriving at the store, Pope manages to escape and attacks a nest of sleeping Skitters, attracting the attention of nearby Mechs.
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Assuming their father is dead, Tom's eldest son, Hal, becomes more of a presence in the 2nd Mass, along with Ben, whose hatred of the Skitters grows stronger. After Tom's return, through flashbacks, "Worlds Apart" details his torture by the Overlords and his pilgrimage back to the 2nd Mass. Reviews for the episode were relatively positive. Many critics saw it as a step-up in quality from the first season and praised the darker approach to storytelling.
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Inside the camp, when the children raise the alarm, Tom is forced to separate from Weaver and is led by Mira to Matts cell. He immediately rescues Matt who is being attacked by Kent Matthews by striking him, and with the help of Mira who distracts the skitters, leaves along with Matt. Shortly afterwards, Tom is reunited with an emotional Weaver who explains to him, Matt and Cochise what had happened with Jeanne. Though unbeknownst to Tom, he is currently being tracked by the scorched Overlord.
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Mentioned in "The Eye," this alien race drove the Espheni from their home galaxy which caused them to flee to the Milky Way Galaxy, conquering planet after planet. They are indirectly responsible for the Invasion of Earth, the Volm-Espheni War, and the enslavement of the Skitters. According to the Espheni overlord Scorch, they are fast approaching the Solar System. One Dornia appeared to Tom after his Beamer was flung to the edge of the Solar System, creating a room that mimicked his Boston bedroom.
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It has been identified by Cochise that the Dornia were the original species that was enslaved by the Espheni and mutated into Skitters. This Dornia returned Tom to Earth and began guiding him against the Espheni. It reveals to him that it is the last of its race and it believes that Tom can help it wipe out the Espheni and avenge the genocide of the Dornia. The Dornia gives Tom a biological weapon that when used on the Espheni Queen, will wipe out the Espheni.
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Rick tells Hal that if they go and find Ben, they will be killed. Hal then comes up with a new plan for rescuing Ben, wearing a "harness" himself in order to avoid detection. Tom protests against this idea, but Hal convinces him. The pair goes to see Anne, who tells them of the "pressure point" that Dr. Harris found earlier when Mike knocked the Skitter out: the Skitters have no bone separating the soft palate of their upper mouth from the brain, making it a weak spot.
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After recovering, Rick and Ben lead Tom and the Berzerkers to a warehouse to find an injured skitter with one red eye -- the same one in charge of Tom's torture on the ship and the same one that killed Jimmy Boland. They both beg them to help the skitter explaining he is a rebel; some skitters can fight the control of the harness and have formed a rebellion. They wish to fight together with the humans to defeat the overlords. Hal bonds with Maggie as she begins to open up about her past.
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It remained in publication . In April 2012, Dark Horse began releasing a second eight-issue limited series entitled Falling Skies: The Battle of Fitchburg, with Paul Tobin returning as writer and Juan Ferreyra returning as series artist. The digital comic was made available through both Dark Horse Comics and TNT via their respective websites. The story takes place chronologically between the first and second seasons of the television show and details a costly engagement occurring between the skitters and the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment when the aliens surround the human forces at Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
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Realizing that the only person who knew their location was the strange woman they met earlier, they return to her apartment and discover she is an agent of the Skitters who use her to capture people. While questioning her, a young woman turns up at the door inquiring whether any more people have been there. She turns out to be Karen, Hal's girlfriend, who has now been captured and harnessed. Before Hal can do anything, Tom looks through the peep hole and comes face to face with one of the new tall aliens.
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They learn that a large group of Skitters have fought off the control of the harness and are mounting a rebellion against the Overlords; the Skitter rebels desire an alliance with the humans. During a firefight with alien forces, Tom briefly holds an Overlord - who was also present during Tom's own captivity - captive. Upon arriving in Charleston, Tom is reunited with his academic mentor, Arthur Manchester (Terry O'Quinn). Manchester, the "Majority Leader" of Charleston's government, is overeager to prevent hostilities with the aliens, a position that Tom and Weaver consider reckless.
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These four actresses ignite the screen with so much power and charisma that one yearns for more ensemble scenes." Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "fitful, tritely amusing" and "filled with little but empty gestures, contrivance and jokes that fizzle." He added, "Still, the movie, for all its imploding moments and artificial dialogue, is surprisingly well-acted, its characters given a chance by director David Anspaugh to be vital, almost as if the actors went to extraordinary pains to overcome the lame script." In The Washington Post, Desson Howe said the film "skitters somewhere between mildly diverting and lukewarm . . .
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Around this time, Tom encounters a group of scavengers led by a man named John Pope (Colin Cunningham). After a firefight with Skitters, Pope's group is reluctantly taken in by the 2nd Mass. After learning that Ben is being kept in a hospital with other brainwashed children, Tom, Hal, and the 2nd Mass' commanding officer, Captain Dan Weaver (Will Patton), formulate a plan to infiltrate the building, kill the Skitter guarding them, and rescue Ben and the other captives. Ben's harness is removed, but Hal notices that his brother has undergone physical and behavioral changes during his time in captivity.
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Tom reassures his son that Ben will be fine. Col. Porter calls a briefing for the fighters in a classroom. Long-distance communication collapsed when the Skitters detonated their EMP attack at the start of the invasion six months ago, leaving the resistance to have to rely on sending scouts to physically run west to try to find out more information, and the runners have finally returned. Porter reports that they contacted another human resistance militia in the outskirts of Chicago, who in turn told them that they had contacted other resistance cells in Oklahoma and Texas, with fuzzy reports of surviving human resistance cells as far away as California.
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Here he resurrects an alternative strategy that Wayne Shorter proposed in albums like Atlantis and High Life: tightly knit, complex charts for small ensembles that are flexible enough to couch striking personal statements but catchy enough to comfort audiences with an identifiable thread. Irving writes close parallels for his three capable horn players and directs the rhythm section's approach, leaving openings for his deft, light-fingered pianism. “Poznan Dream’” evokes an airy wistfulness that recurs later in the ballad “Octobre”. Scott Hesse's guitar skitters through the saxophones on “Generations” and is generously featured on “Maat.” “Energy,” suggestive of McCoy Tyner, packs punches with Laurence d’Estival Irving's fervent saxophone wail.
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All previous attempts to perform autopsies on dead Skitters have been unsuccessful, because their innards rapidly decompose into unrecognizable mush very soon after they die. In the first months of the invasion the humans were just running for their lives and couldn't carry Skitter corpses back from the front lines, and even when they could bring one back later on, they had already decomposed internally. Because the captured Skitter died right inside of their base, it's their first real opportunity to successfully autopsy one. Lourdes assists Anne with the procedure, because as a first year medical student she's the closest thing to a nurse she has.
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At the opening of the series, most of the human race has been destroyed in an alien invasion. Tom Mason, a history professor from Boston who almost always wears the same bike gloves, is made second-in-command of the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment, a group of civilians and fighters fleeing the city. Tom's three sons are Hal, Ben, and Matt; his wife perished during the initial stages of the invasion. At the start of the series, Ben has been captured by the "Skitters" - six-legged beings who make up the alien ground forces - and fitted with a "harness" that is making him perform slave labor through mind control.
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However, Harris says that it is impossible to remove the tips of the needles that have fused into the child's spine: the points of the needles seem to be some sort of nanotechnology that grows into the spine the longer it is present. Tom finds Hal alive and Hal tells his father of what he witnessed. Tom explains that the Nazis used similar tactics against Allied POW's in World War II: if one prisoner managed to escape, they would execute entire groups but leave one witness behind, to let the Allies know the harsh reprisal they would exact. The Skitters let Hal escape because they want to discourage the human resistance from attempting to free more harnessed children.
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When it's time to be funny, he skitters over the top. When he's sad or touched, he makes a mechanical, catching noise in his throat." John Simon called Branagh's performance "brawny" and "not easy to like" and said that Branagh's direction used "explicitness where Shakespeare ... settled for subtlety or mere suggestion".John Simon On Film: Criticism, 1982–2001 – John Ivan Simon – Google Books Leonard Maltin, who gave the film a positive three stars in his Movie and Video Guide (and gave the Olivier version of Hamlet four stars), praised the cinematography by Alex Thomson, but stated that "Branagh essentially gives a stage performance that is nearly as over-the-top as some of his directorial touches.
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Three months after the battle in Boston, a traumatized Tom is returned to the 2nd Mass and is accidentally shot by Ben. In flashbacks, it is revealed that Tom was put through agonizing torture before being brought before the Overlords, who offered to allow the 2nd Mass to peacefully live in a "neutral zone" in exchange for their surrender; Tom refused. A "Mech" - one of the robotic beings fighting alongside the Skitters - massacred a group of humans as a reprisal. After he recovers, Tom becomes the focus of suspicion by other members of the 2nd Mass, who fear that he turned or was brainwashed while in alien captivity; this tension leads to a conflict between Tom and Pope, who forms a parallel group called the Berserkers.
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After 3 days of travel Tom arrives back at the Volm hideout with Matt, Cochise and Weaver, he notices the message left by Hal and takes measures to decipher it, he however is unaware that the Scorched Overlord along with several Skitters are patrolling the warehouse and is forced to make a quick retreat after learning where Hal was headed. Shortly afterwards, Cochise informs Tom that he needs to rejoin his recon team and then leaves. As Tom and the group make their way through the forest, they come across a camp inhabited by 2 men, who introduce themselves as Nick and Cooper, who are brothers. When they tell Tom that they had escaped from the Espheni, he's skeptical and voices his concerns to Weaver.
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Leidenfrost droplet Demonstration of the Leidenfrost effect The Leidenfrost effect is a physical phenomenon in which a liquid, close to a surface that is significantly hotter than the liquid's boiling point, produces an insulating vapor layer that keeps the liquid from boiling rapidly. Because of this 'repulsive force', a droplet hovers over the surface rather than making physical contact with the hot surface. This is most commonly seen when cooking, when a few drops of water are sprinkled in a hot pan. If the pan's temperature is at or above the Leidenfrost point, which is approximately for water, the water skitters across the pan and takes longer to evaporate than it would take if the water droplets had been sprinkled into a cooler pan.
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Tom later decides to return to the Pickett house to check on their well being, after telling them about Charleston, but is ambushed by several Espheni mechs and skitters. Now captured by Karen, Tom awakens in a dream world where the invasion has not happened and he and his wife and sons have been living a normal but happy life. As Tom continued to live out this false reality as a college professor, he starts to receive messages from Anne Glass but with no memory of her, the 2nd Mass or of the alien invasion; things around him start to fall apart. When three locations are made exceedingly clear to him during the dream, he later realizes what he has been seeing was not real and awakens inside an Espheni base in Boston.
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However his actions which sometimes involved provoking the skitters, were not unnoticed by the Espheni, a single overlord aboard a ship monitoring the ghetto sends a message to an unknown person demanding that the vigilante, which some residents dub 'The Ghost' be handed over, or the residents of the ghetto will be killed. Meanwhile, Tom learns from Cochise that the Volm had no choice but to leave the Earth, and have left behind several scout teams. He is then informed that the Espheni had set up ghettos all across the planet, for reasons he does not yet know, and that the Espheni are developing a new power source. Fearing the extinction of humanity, Cochise offers Tom words of support, and when Tom requests that he try to find Anne, Lexi, Matt, and Ben, he agrees.
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Leidenfrost droplet The effect Leidenfrost described is a phenomenon in which a liquid, in near contact with a mass significantly hotter than its boiling point, produces an insulating vapor layer which keeps that liquid from boiling rapidly. It is most commonly seen when cooking; one sprinkles drops of water in a skillet to gauge its temperature. If the skillet's temperature is at or above the Leidenfrost point, the water skitters across the metal and takes longer to evaporate than it would in a skillet that is hot, but at a temperature below the Leidenfrost point. It has also been used in some more risky demonstrations, such as dipping a wet finger in molten lead or blowing out a mouthful of liquid nitrogen, both enacted without injury to the demonstrator.
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The remnants of 2nd Mass have set up a temporary base at an abandoned airfield; Anne is overwhelmed with patients who have the flu while Ben and Jimmy are out on patrol duty and kill a group of Skitters. Tom, who was assisting Anne, is kidnapped by Pope and his men and taken outside of the airfield and is told that quite a few people are afraid of Tom and question his escape from the aliens and demand that he leave the group. Ben and Jimmy get the drop on Pope and disarm him, and take him back to base. Weaver contemplates kicking Pope and his men out, but Tom insists that he be made part of Pope's "Berserker" group and put under Pope's command to keep an eye on him.
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The only difference is that they changed the tips on each of the cartridges so they fire bullets made out of exotic Mech-metal, making each shot armor-piercing (which Pope compares to using depleted uranium tipped rounds, but much more powerful). The human resistance does not know why the aliens are using Earth building materials and ammunition, only vaguely speculating that the aliens planned for the invasion to rely on local resources to support itself. Matt remarks that it's not fair that the Mech- metal used in the Skitters' robots gives them such an edge in combat that the humans don't have, which inspires Pope to start experimenting around with the recovered Mech-metal they have. Meanwhile, Dr. Anne Glass decides to perform an autopsy on the corpse of the Skitter she killed, which she hasn't had a chance to perform yet because of the temporary evacuation instigated by the incident with the 7th Mass.
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The novels are narrated in the first person by the schoolboy Jamie Grant, who at the start of the first book is twelve years old and has just started a new school. The Time Runners of the series title are people who fall through a time break and who therefore "no longer exist": they cannot be seen and are not remembered, but they continue an existence outside time, with some degree of power over it. The Runners comprise an alliance from many places and times who work to protect time from the interference of those such as Darkling Midnight, an Adept (someone with a very powerful control over time) who the Runners see as their enemy, and who is assisted by evil time creatures called Skitters. The Runners appear to remain fixed at the age they were when they fell outside time, so once Jamie becomes a Runner he remains at twelve years old throughout the remaining books.
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When Tom saves Pope's life, he then successfully leaves the area with Pope's help, evading Espheni forces along the way. Much to Tom's shock and dismay, when he awakens in the hospital in Charleston he learns from his sons that Anne and Alexis have fled Charleston due to the revelation of her baby being part alien, and she has been abducted by Karen. During Tom's absence, his sons Hal, Ben, Matt and Maggie lead an initial search team to try to locate Anne and Alexis, but later return home to Charleston under the realization that the Espheni have them, and that the best course of action as suggested by Ben was to try and use the Rebel Skitters within the Espheni ranks to try to locate Anne and the baby. When Tom has recovered enough to walk around and resume his duties, he is thrust into further danger when his son Hal, implanted with an Espheni eyebug, attacks him and Peralta as they are discussing the Volm weapon.
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Faced with the news that humanity will be skitterized by the Espheni in the coming days, Tom puts the finishing touches on his escape plan with Dingaan, and then offers him a place among the 2nd Mass when they escape. Later that day, with Pope, Hal, Weaver, Tector and Digaan gathered, Tom, with a scale model of the ghetto in front of him, informs them that he will draw the attention of the ghettos skitter guards while Dingaan scales the fence. He then informs them that Hal will lead the ghettos residents into the tunnels in 15 man groups to avoid suspicion while Pope and Weaver cover for Dingaan, but faced with a skeptical Pope, Tom explains that when he manages to gather the skitters into one area, he will blow the building he was once held in with the explosive charges. The next day, Tom meets with an Overlord and a harnessed child and informs them that the deal they had is now off, and that they should surrender, but when the Overlord threatens his life, he attacks it with a flamethrower and severely injures it.
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