Falling Skies - season 3

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by DarthTom, May 23, 2013.

  1. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The people in the tail section survived too.
     
  2. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Vice Admiral Admiral

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    If we were using the name USA as a map point, sure I'd still call everything what it used to be because it's easier. However saying "I'm from the USA or I'm an US American citizen" would be stupid, it has no meaning anymore.
     
  3. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    It has meaning as long as they choose to make it have meaning.
     
  4. Kitty Worrier

    Kitty Worrier Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think in the first season they broke up one large group from Mass into smaller groups. It also seemed like they mentioned other groups from other states across the country. IIRC, all the other Mass groups fell, but what about groups and other survivors from other states? Do they really think every single one of them fell too?
     
  5. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    They used to in contact with a central command until the pilot when they had to abandon the city. If Hathaway was participating in the resistance, it would have been known, although if he advertised his presence wouldn't that make him a key target?

    A friend in my own countries military admitted to me years ago, that any country strong enough to get an army large enough to hold this country across the water, because there's a shit load of water, most of the armies job is to run away and hide in the rain forest for a couple years, until the enemy has established an infrastructure and started moving in civilians to occupy our land, and only then is it their job to strike.
     
  6. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    That's deep. So the first question you might want to ask while you're heading for your hidey-holes is, "What the fuck was the Navy doing while this notional enemy was crossing this shitload of water?"
     
  7. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Our navy is four ships half the size of a destroyer, US surplus, and then a whole lot of smaller boats. Our soldiers, airmen and sailors are over trained and extremely competent, but they don't have a lot of toys to play with.

    There's less than 4 million people living here. That's not a lot of surplus to sign up to the armed forces or taxes to pay for an armed forces with any scope.

    I live in a Banana Republic.

    Swap Sheep for banana.

    Besides, we all know the secret to winning a game of Risk is holding Australia.

    To get to us, Australia has to fall.

    How likely is that?
     
  8. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    The secret to winning Risk is South America. Australia can be bottled in too easily.
     
  9. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    Never played Risk. I would have thought you'd have to take down a european country first.
     
  10. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In Risk Australia (,New Guinea and Indonesia) is a continent called "Australia".

    You get additional troop bonus reinforcements at the beginning of each turn if you successfully hold a continent. (I just counted.) Europe has 6 boarders to Green land, Africa and Russia. You'd basically need landmines to defend this place properly. Australia might be bottled in, but on the other hand AUSTRALIA IS BOTTLED IN. One way in or out. Siam. It's also half the size. Which means it's easy to completely conquer in your first turn if you have a foothold and then easy to hold so that you get your reinforcement bonus unless someone chooses to stick 10 horses in Siam, but the reinforcement bonus is 2/5ths the size of Europe so why bother unless you're being a prick and talking smack... And really if you can't talk smack while playing Risk, what's the fucking point?

    (I feel very Rimmer right now.)
     
  11. Pavonis

    Pavonis Commodore Commodore

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    So...Cochise has a real name, and not just an alien that is exactly the same as a famous human's name. Good. But I don't buy into Cochise's motive for fighting the fishheads. For a flower that he's never seen that only grows on his homeworld that he's never set foot on? It seemed like he expertly deflected the President's questions about his, and the Volm's, motive for supporting the humans.

    I wouldn't be surprised if the Volm superweapon that's being built in Charleston is a bomb big enough to destroy the Earth. That'd be a good way to make the fishheads give up their foothold on Earth. The Volm only have a couple of dozen people on Earth; they might think that's an acceptable number to sacrifice to wipe out the fishhead's entire occupation force on Earth.
     
  12. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    There's a flower in Farscape that the Scarrans value enough to make Universe-wide War.

    I won't get to watch this episode until I get home, so I don't know the context of the flower you say the Volm value so much
     
  13. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    The flower is a metaphor for "going home" and they can't go home till the enemy is entirely dead.

    Is this a parallel for the US troops in the Middle East?

    It's been ten years, in another 8 years if its still going, conceivably Father's and sons will be fighting side by side. Of course fathers and sons are already possibly fighting side by side, but for this to be a truly generational war, soldiers will have to be sent into it who had not yet been born when it started... Of course considering a 6 year old on meth with a kalashikov is pretty fucking devastating it's safe to say that the opposition has already tagged several different generations to put in towards the war effort.

    I remember on Stargate Atlantis when Shepherd asked Ronin if he wanted to come back to Earth with them because they were bugging out... "No, that's impossible" He said "I refuse to leave this Galaxy until every Wraith in it is dead."
     
  14. Mister Fandango

    Mister Fandango Fleet Captain

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    I think you missed the whole point of his speech.
     
  15. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    Nope, Cochise basically sidestepped the question.
     
  16. Pavonis

    Pavonis Commodore Commodore

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    I didn't miss the point, I just don't believe it.

    I'm expecting a twist of some sort, some revelation about the Volm's motives that hasn't been revealed yet. In a story like Falling Skies, I'd expect help to come from above, as the Volm did, but I wouldn't expect that help to be so completely humanitarian.

    Maybe the Volm really are just out to free the species that the Espheni conquer. Until the show is over, though, I'll be awaiting a plot twist related to the Volm. The characters keep pointing out that no one but the Volm know anything about the "weapon" that is being built in Charleston. Why keep bringing it up if it's not more than it seems to be?

    Weaver and Tom had a discussion about how Churchill and Roosevelt may not have wanted to work with Stalin against Hitler, but they had to do so in order to win the war. So are the writers dropping hints that the Volm may be more like Stalin than like Roosevelt (assuming humans are equivalent to Great Britain - beleaguered but fighting valiantly but still needing help)? Will humans end up under the thumb of a Stalin-like dictator from the Volm?

    ETA - President Hathaway asked why the Volm were fighting the Espheni, but Cochise merely answered with the reason he was fighting. Basically sidestepping the question by giving his personal motive, but not his people's motive.
     
  17. Admiral2

    Admiral2 Admiral Admiral

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    :wtf:

    In Real Life, Australia is a continent called "Australia." Has been for years.

    Agreed, so I'll leave Risk to you and stick with Monopoly.


    I'm with you on this one.

    Cochise told a great, schmaltzy, romantic story about fighting this war that could - and should, if this show doesn't want to get boring - be revealed as complete elephant snot in some future moment of truth. Too good to be true usually is too good to be true, and that's the alarm bell ringing for me as far as the Volm are concerned.
     
  18. Mister Fandango

    Mister Fandango Fleet Captain

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    That's not what your post implied. Well, the first part anyway.

    As for ulterior motives, I have no doubt there are some. But his speech was about him fighting for a flower poetically. The actual speech was that they were fighting them because they stole their home from them, and that maybe one day if they completely destroy them, they'll be able to return to their home. Until that day arrives, they're aiding all the other worlds and civilizations they come across in the hopes that they won't have to go through what the Volm went through.

    And despite knowing that there is likely some kind of ulterior motive, there's nothing very suspect about that reasoning aside from one's own paranoia. It's one we, ourselves, could likely make if we were in the Volm's position.

    No, he was speaking for his people as a whole, using the flower as his personal motivation in order to give the story more oomph.
     
  19. Pavonis

    Pavonis Commodore Commodore

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    Speaking poetically is a great way to hide the fact that the speaker is actually saying nothing.

    If the Volm are so powerful they can defeat the Espheni, why haven't they taken their homeworld back? Why is Cochise on Earth? Are the Volm out to kill every Espheni that exists?
     
  20. Mister Fandango

    Mister Fandango Fleet Captain

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    Except he didn't say nothing. He explained, quite eloquently, his people's motivation for what they're doing. Which was all he was asked.