On June 29th of this year, Don S. Davis, a noted science fiction actor known for his portrayal of Dana Scully’s father in The X-Files as well as Major General George Hammond in Stargate SG-1, passed away suddenly from a heart attack. Mr. Davis had planned to be a guest at Dragon*Con this year, also having been a guest of Dragon*Con 2006. The Stargate: Offworld track scheduled a time for fans to grieve and mourn the passing of this wonderful man.

Sunday morning was the last guest-attended panel for Torchwood during Dragon*Con 2008. Gareth David-Lloyd and Anthony Lewis appeared and regaled fans with stories from the set of the British science fiction drama.

Firefly died long before its time, but not before attracting enough fans to fill the largest ballroom with legions of self-proclaimed Browncoats. In Sunday’s “An Hour in the Firefly ‘Verse” in the Marriott Atrium, Nathan Fillion, Jewel Staite, Morena Baccarin, and Alan Tudyk discussed some of the potential twists and turns Firefly might have taken had it continued to fly.

After the disappointment of Friday night’s parties, and the double-fun of the Firefly and Battlestar Galactica parties on Saturday night, this reporter ventured out once more on Sunday night and was absolutely, positively, geekily blown away.

John and Ian Lohr, a father-and-son publishing team from Wyoming, spoke at the Sunday afternoon panel “Pulp: the Foundations of the Forties and Fifties.” They shared their experiences working with the genre and invited the audience to participate in their literary rediscovery of science fiction classics.

The second annual Dragon*Con Academic Mini Conference, in collaboration with the Institute for Comics Studies, presented three panels featuring scholarly studies of comics and pop culture. On Sunday, a panel of three graduate students discussed their work. Sabrina Starnaman (University of California-San Diego) examined Jonathan Hickman’s The Nightly News for his commentary on the struggle for autonomy in an insidiously powerful state. Brian Curtis (Nashville State Community College) discussed how superheroes provide a vehicle for achieving a fully developed psyche. …

Over in the Space Track, Forsythe (Hil), NASA scientist Trina Ray spoke about the latest and greatest discoveries from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. The Cassini Spacecraft launched on October 15th, 1997, and took seven years to reach Saturn. The four-year prime mission called for 75 orbits of Saturn, 45 targeted flybys of Titan, eight targeted icy satellite flybys, as well as the launch of the Huygens probe, which landed on Titan on January 14th, 2005. The total cost for NASA was $3 billion.

The good news is that the primary mission, which ended in July of 2008, has been extended by two more years, concluding July 1, 2010. The extra time will allow scientists to capture Saturn’s equinox, when the rings are directly edge on with the sun.

Ray organized her talk like a Top Ten list, listing the aspects of the mission in order of greatness. But with so many exciting chunks of information goodness, she only had time for nine.

In its first year as a host hotel, the Sheraton met the warm embrace of Dragon*Con attendees and their sweet, sweet parties. The Sheraton became party central Saturday night as music from three parties echoed through the hotel’s halls. Its distance from the other host hotels did nothing to deter any partiers who flooded the streets as they trekked to their favorite get-together.

Slash fiction has held its own in the Harry Potter canon of slash fiction for years, but it’s not a place actors go very often. Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom in the HP movie adaptations, didn’t see it until a fan handed him a stack of stories.

The Dragon*Con Art Show honored its former director, Dr. Patrick James Roberts (1962-2008), with a memorial Saturday evening and dedicated this year’s Dragon*Con Art Show and awards to his memory. Co-director Jon Parise narrated a video featuring Patrick and his interests.