Spoilers Dark Matter - Season 2

[Christopher]

"First Law" I don't know the reference?

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, from his classic robot stories and countless other works of fiction influenced by them. The First Law is "A robot shall not harm a human being or allow a human being to come to harm." (The Second Law is that a robot must obey human orders unless they conflict with the First Law, and the Third is that a robot must protect its own existence as long as it doesn't conflict with the first two Laws.)

 

[Stephen Lee]

Im just glad Six doesn't have to wear that odd looking uniform anymore, too bad he frozen though now. And that weapon selection process.. small, bigger gun, biggest gun. I'm surprised she could carry it and handle the recoil?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Im just glad Six doesn't have to wear that odd looking uniform anymore, too bad he frozen though now. And that weapon selection process.. small, bigger gun, biggest gun. I'm surprised she could carry it and handle the recoil?

We'll see if he stays that way or not. It does seem that blacks end up victims in a lot of sci-fi shows (and reality...). I haven't actually tabulated the counts or anything but it seems that way.

Do energy weapons have recoil? I was trying to remember if shooting the big gun was ever shown to be hard to fire.

 

[Christopher]

We'll see if he stays that way or not. It does seem that blacks end up victims in a lot of sci-fi shows (and reality...). I haven't actually tabulated the counts or anything but it seems that way.

It used to be a perennial trope that "The black guy always dies first." Paul Winfield pretty much made a career out of playing characters who died. It's less the case than it used to be, although there are still shows that fall into old, bad habits (one of the main reasons I stopped watching The 100 is because they kept killing off their black and Asian characters with disturbing regularity).

Do energy weapons have recoil? I was trying to remember if shooting the big gun was ever shown to be hard to fire.

Logically, they should. We've seen that this type of gun in Dark Matter blasts people backward when its bolts hit them. Therefore, by Newton's Third Law of Motion, that action should provoke an equal and opposite reaction and propel the gun and the shooter backward just as forcefully. Really, the only way you could stand in place and fire a gun that flings its targets back with such force is if it were on a tripod bolted to the ground. Action without reaction is a physical impossibility.

 

[cylkoth]

Actually, Six was the first crewmember to die...but he was quickly resuscitated by the Android in S1Ep3. I noticed that last year, but I didnt want to remind anyone of that trope.

Im just glad Six doesn't have to wear that odd looking uniform

It didnt look bad on Lt Anders or the others. I'm wondering it was intentional, to have him appear so awkward in it, in order to signal his discomfort in reintergating with his real life.

 

[Christopher]

It didnt look bad on Lt Anders or the others. I'm wondering it was intentional, to have him appear so awkward in it, in order to signal his discomfort in reintergating with his real life.

Maybe it's just that we're used to seeing Six in civvies, so the uniform looked weirder on him than on someone we didn't already have a mental image of.

I'm still wondering if one of the new characters is going to take over as "One" or if they're just going to retire his number, as it were.

 

[Admiral2]

"First Law" I don't know the reference? I had heard Adam Carolla joking about how people talk to their mooks and how would they know if something like "take them out" meant escort them outside or put a bullet in their head. One thing is certain 5 is now on the Galactic Authority's wanted list. Assuming she survives the next episode and is not lost in the reboot like 1 and 6 were. Given her character age I guess that she will remain on

"Of Robotics" SW. Five tells Droid to kill and she just up and does it. Niiiice...

 

[Wouter]

"First Law" I don't know the reference? I had heard Adam Carolla joking about how people talk to their mooks and how would they know if something like "take them out" meant escort them outside or put a bullet in their head. One thing is certain 5 is now on the Galactic Authority's wanted list. Assuming she survives the next episode and is not lost in the reboot like 1 and 6 were. Given her character age I guess that she will remain on

6 is not lost. By putting him in stasis, they have bought time to find a decently equipped surgery room and the blood they need. And that way, Shaun Sipos gets something to do with his character Devon, proving his worth to the crew. A bit of a callback to Firefly (and their doctor), again, though I suppose Devon does not have a weird younger sister.

As Christopher mentioned, Mike Dopud is not a regular. Which may mean that Arax Nero (his character) is the "asset" that will go after Five. Though it could also by Nyx, who sought to join the crew from the outset (Arax had a sudden change of heart, also suspicious). If it is Nyx, it will have to be a long game though and be a storyline similar to 6 last year.

Another possibility is that the "asset" is the Android, possibly tampered with on the prison. It was surprising that the neural interface with the Raza suddenly didn't work, if such a detail is put in the show there is a probably a consequence somewhere.

Five's command was dark, as it the way the DM world in general and the GA in particular work. There are no good guys around. What surprised me is that it seems to be more or less common knowledge that Traugott pulled a fast one on Mikkei, it's just the legal proof that seems to be a concern. I hadn't expected that Shaddick would buy it already in the second episode, without accomplishing anything.

Mikkei helped the crew of the Raza to escape. I wonder what the gameplan is there. Ferrous pushing for a trial is weird, considering that the Android holds proof that Ferrous wanted to kill the miners from the pilot episode. None of the corporations are served by the truth.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

I assume that Android's loss of the neural interface was a result of the GA digging around in her brain. She did seem to be in considerable discomfort. If the lasting consequence is the Raza now having to be flown by a hands-on pilot instead of remote control, that's not a bad thing.

 

[cylkoth]

Perhaps they placed an inhibitor in her to prevent her from accessing their systems. That would explain why she couldn't interface with the Raza. Removing it may not be simple providing her with additional challenges to overcome...or frell things up.

 

[Tom]

Poor Mike Dopud, he never seems to get a regular role. He has ben in a bunch of Scifi shows like Stargate, Continuum, etc., but always as a guest actor.

 

[Christopher]

Poor Mike Dopud, he never seems to get a regular role. He has ben in a bunch of Scifi shows like Stargate, Continuum, etc., but always as a guest actor.

He seems to have become the latest beneficiary of the Blu Mankuma clause. I used to joke that there must be some Canadian law requiring Blu Mankuma to appear in every show ever made in that country. These days, Mike Dopud seems to have taken over that role, though Roger Cross seemed to hold the post for a while before/alongside him.

 

[Cyrus]

OK, I have managed to stay on-board watching Dark Matter and Killjoys so far. They have kept my interest (though it is waning), and having an attractive female lead helps too. I think I am getting ready to bail out on Killjoys but will stick with Dark Matter for now.

So is the new Devon character going to be acting as the ship Doctor? Is there going to be a sickbay?

 

[Wouter]

OK, I have managed to stay on-board watching Dark Matter and Killjoys so far. They have kept my interest (though it is waning), and having an attractive female lead helps too. I think I am getting ready to bail out on Killjoys but will stick with Dark Matter for now.

So is the new Devon character going to be acting as the ship Doctor? Is there going to be a sickbay?

There has always been a sickbay on the Raza (two was in it last year, after she got the zombie-virus), but it is not equipped well enough for surgery (or not the type of surgery that Six needs, anyway). And they didn't have a doctor last season; now Devon will be that.

A suggestion I read on another forum is that Reynaud (sinister business lady)'s "asset" on board the Raza may be Five herself, though in that case the meaning would be a bit different (presumably they would want to take Five to get whatever it is they are after). The dialogue at the end also may suggest that Reynaud has ties to Corelactic - the funeral she was talking about may be that of Derrick Moss.

What was likable about the first two episodes of this season, is that everybody got to play his or her role. Even Three's foray into medical proved to be of crucial importance in the end. And the character's motives and reactions seemed spot-on, for the most part, allthough Five is getting harder (something that started last season).

 

[Mr. Adventure]

While it gives the other characters something you'd think Anne Droid would be equipped to perform medical procedures. Seems like it'd be a useful function.

 

[Reverend]

^Down that road leads plot contrivance and painting oneself into a corner.
If the android can be programmed to perform just about any complex task then they're going to have to come up with reasons why it won't work to fix a similar problem every third or fourth episode.

This happened with Star Trek a *lot*. They really shot themselves in the foot early on by having so much massively powerful or versatile technology without fully considering the implications. The transporter probably being the worst culprit since it could do almost *anything* including raise the dead, create clones, cross universes and conjure food out of thin air.
Which is a bit of an dumb oversight since when you think about it, considering the impact of advanced technology is the very basis for Science Fiction from Verne on up.
It's partly why the technical explanations on the shows got increasingly complicated until by the end it was little more than gibberish.

It's best to set hard limits on what your technology can do ahead of time, so you have tight parameters in which to innovate. B5 was generally good at this, as was Stargate to a degree (though that could get a little woolly at times.) Shows like BSG were the other extreme where they wet to such lengths to avoid getting into technical specifics that you never really knew where you stood.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ True, true, I was just jawin', it makes sense from a storytelling perspective for sure.

Dark Matter and Killjoys have been close to hooking me but at the moment they're on the perilous edge of my watchlist. I missed some episodes at the end of last season(s) and don't really fell like I've missed much. Syfy Fridays were long the dumping ground of "passable" timekillers so it feels about right.

 

[Wouter]

Logically, they should. We've seen that this type of gun in Dark Matter blasts people backward when its bolts hit them. Therefore, by Newton's Third Law of Motion, that action should provoke an equal and opposite reaction and propel the gun and the shooter backward just as forcefully. Really, the only way you could stand in place and fire a gun that flings its targets back with such force is if it were on a tripod bolted to the ground. Action without reaction is a physical impossibility.

Dark Matter is far from hard SF, and as such they can play with the advanced tech that they have. This gun is an energy based weapon, and it may be the force that flings back people is only released at impact on the target (or any object it happens to cross). Indeed, when three fired it at "the door" last season, he was flung back by the backblast, but not by firing it.

To give real-life equivalents to illustrate what I mean:
-A WW2-era nuclear freefall bomb is released by a B29 bomber. The release obeys Newton's laws of motion and thus causes the plane to move up a bit at the point of release. However, this force is totally negligible compared to the nuclear explosion that will follow, because the detonation of the bomb is an entirely different event from the act of dropping the bomb. Therefore, the effects on the target and the effects on the launch platform are not comparable at all. Unless the plane does not manage to leave the blast radius in time, that is.

-A Rocket-propelled grenade is launched at a target, such as a lightly armoured vehicle. This weapon is shot from the shoulder, but there is barely or no recoil because the blast of the rocket is directed behind the shooter and it takes the reaction energy of the shot with it. If the projectile hits and the armour is penetrated, the effects for the target are devastating. In this case, the weapon can be fired from the shoulder (and yet have serious destructive power) because there is a method to eliminate recoil without violating Newton's laws. In the case of the futuristic gun in DM, who is to say there may not be another mean to deal with recoil without throwing the user around?

 

[Christopher]

Dark Matter is far from hard SF, and as such they can play with the advanced tech that they have.

Obviously, but that's not the point. Mr. Adventure asked if an energy weapon would have recoil. Since the weapon was clearly shown as not having recoil, it seemed that he was asking whether it should have recoil after all, and that was the question I addressed.

And of course, ignoring Newton's Third Law has nothing to do with whether a show is SF or not. Countless present-day action movies, Westerns, and the like depict bullets blasting people backwards through the air several meters (or ideally through any nearby plate-glass window) while the shooter experiences no equal and opposite reaction. It's so common that they debunked it on Mythbusters. It's not about science fiction, it's just about spectacle. And it's always dumb.

This gun is an energy based weapon, and it may be the force that flings back people is only released at impact on the target (or any object it happens to cross). Indeed, when three fired it at "the door" last season, he was flung back by the backblast, but not by firing it.

To give real-life equivalents to illustrate what I mean:
-A WW2-era nuclear freefall bomb is released by a B29 bomber. The release obeys Newton's laws of motion and thus causes the plane to move up a bit at the point of release. However, this force is totally negligible compared to the nuclear explosion that will follow, because the detonation of the bomb is an entirely different event from the act of dropping the bomb. Therefore, the effects on the target and the effects on the launch platform are not comparable at all. Unless the plane does not manage to leave the blast radius in time, that is.

So you're suggesting the gun emits some kind of field effect that generates a sort of explosive effect in all directions once it hits the target. I don't know if what we've seen is consistent with that. If that did happen, there would be a blowback every time, and there'd be at least a powerful gust of wind in the shooter's face, say. The blowback Three experienced when he shot the door didn't look like that -- it looked like the beam from the gun bounced off the door and back to hit him.

In this case, the weapon can be fired from the shoulder (and yet have serious destructive power) because there is a method to eliminate recoil without violating Newton's laws. In the case of the futuristic gun in DM, who is to say there may not be another mean to deal with recoil without throwing the user around?

Maybe, but even so, it's still necessary to establish that Newton's Law should apply before you start imagining ways to break it. You can't figure out how to bend the rules unless you understand the rules.

 

[sojourner]

it's still necessary to establish that Newton's Law should apply before you start imagining ways to break it.

People in real life don't go around explaining how cars work every time they use one. To do so in fiction would be just as strange.