I don't know how I feel about Torchwood

[wamdue]

Still he did say that there were better episodes of Neighbours, that seem to be going OTT

Never seen it, just understand it's some soap opera type show. Also, it crossed over with Doctor Who way back in the day ... Dimensions in Time and all that.

not quite, Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time "crossed over" with Eastenders the BBC main soap opera.

Neighbours is in fact an Aussie soap, which did used to air on BBC, but is now on Five.

To the best of my knowledge there has been no crossovers between Doctor Who & Neighbours, until I write it as a FanFic that is.

 

[OmahaStar]

Still he did say that there were better episodes of Neighbours, that seem to be going OTT

Never seen it, just understand it's some soap opera type show. Also, it crossed over with Doctor Who way back in the day ... Dimensions in Time and all that.

not quite, Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time "crossed over" with Eastenders the BBC main soap opera.

Neighbours is in fact an Aussie soap, which did used to air on BBC, but is now on Five.

To the best of my knowledge there has been no crossovers between Doctor Who & Neighbours, until I write it as a FanFic that is.

When you're from the US and haven't seen either, it's close enough.

 

[wamdue]

they are a few subtle differences, where both shows feature people whos lives are really horrible and with never ending problems, the residents of Ramsay Street at least get to air there problems in sunlight, where as the residents of Albert Square have either to make do with the constantly grey skys of Walford or during a fight in the Queen Vic

So yes main difference, one has more sun that the other.

 

[Tulin]

[You are right that USS Bones has at least watched it unlike some on this thread who I wont mention

I am taking holidays from next Monday 9/11 and will watch CoE and a whole backlog of other stuff I've had sitting around for eons, as well.

 

[Tulin]

Still he did say that there were better episodes of Neighbours, that seem to be going OTT

Never seen it, just understand it's some soap opera type show. Also, it crossed over with Doctor Who way back in the day ... Dimensions in Time and all that.

not quite, Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time "crossed over" with Eastenders the BBC main soap opera.

Neighbours is in fact an Aussie soap, which did used to air on BBC, but is now on Five.

To the best of my knowledge there has been no crossovers between Doctor Who & Neighbours, until I write it as a FanFic that is.

Well there was a "Neighbours"/"Little Britain" crossover when Lou and Andy visited the set!

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Never seen it, just understand it's some soap opera type show. Also, it crossed over with Doctor Who way back in the day ... Dimensions in Time and all that.

not quite, Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time "crossed over" with Eastenders the BBC main soap opera.

Neighbours is in fact an Aussie soap, which did used to air on BBC, but is now on Five.

To the best of my knowledge there has been no crossovers between Doctor Who & Neighbours, until I write it as a FanFic that is.

Well there was a "Neighbours"/"Little Britain" crossover when Lou and Andy visited the set!

There was also some kind of Catherine Tate crossover sketch where Lauren Cooper showed up on either Coronation Street or Eastenders.

Par for the course when in government and you have a powerful alien demanding 10% of your children or they'll destroy the world. It's what we elect them to do.

We elect them to provide for the common defense, not to arbitrarily select which portions of the populace must be sacrificed to the modern equivalent of the Aztec gods! Our lives are our own, not something to be bartered away by self-interested bureaucrats!

I'm really hoping that such a calm discussion of such a horrifying possibility would not occur on that kind of governmental level should a crisis like this ever actually occur. I'm surprised it did in "Children of Earth." I was expecting at least one person in the room to say, "Wait! Seriously? Why the fuck are we even considering this?!"

 

[wamdue]

not quite, Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time "crossed over" with Eastenders the BBC main soap opera.

Neighbours is in fact an Aussie soap, which did used to air on BBC, but is now on Five.

To the best of my knowledge there has been no crossovers between Doctor Who & Neighbours, until I write it as a FanFic that is.

Well there was a "Neighbours"/"Little Britain" crossover when Lou and Andy visited the set!

There was also some kind of Catherine Tate crossover sketch where Lauren Cooper showed up on either Coronation Street or Eastenders.

yes Lauren was on Eastenders, for Comic Relief.

Dont forget that David Tennant did a Lauren sketch as well, where he turned Lauren into a Rose figure with his sonic screwdriver.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^How could I forget? That was the sketch that started me on my new love-affair with The Catherine Tate Show. (And for Catherine Tate herself. I can't put my finger on it but there's something so sexy about the way she carries herself when she plays the Enigmatic Detective.)

 

[Bones2]

I'm really hoping that such a calm discussion of such a horrifying possibility would not occur on that kind of governmental level should a crisis like this ever actually occur. I'm surprised it did in "Children of Earth." I was expecting at least one person in the room to say, "Wait! Seriously? Why the fuck are we even considering this?!"

What would you have done?

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I would have resisted the 456 to the bitter end. I would have attempted every conceivable military & scientific option. I would have suspected that 456 was bluffing anyway. As has been noted by others, it seems strange that a species capable of creating a virus to destroy humanity would be incapable of cloning their own children. It also seems strange that such a supposedly powerful species would need our cooperation to abduct the children. And if the 456 had carried out their threat to wipe-out humanity, that would have left them at square one anyway. There was so much about them & their demands that didn't add up. I think it was foolish to accept what they said at face value. And even if everything they said was true, their demands were still unacceptable.

 

[Starkers]

You're telling me that in the face of 10% of the earth's children or 100% of the Earth's population you would basically consign the human race to death?

Yes wiping us out would have left the 456 back at square one, but they hardly seemed rational creatures...and for all we know they get children from a dozen worlds, so actually destroying Earth probably helps them. See people of planet Zenkar, this is what happens if you refuse...

To turn it around slightly, how would you feel if the world was facing a pandemic of a lethal disease. A vaccine exists, however we only have the doses for 90% of each country's population. What do you think would happen? Do you imagine the British government, or the American government, or the Iranian government would say "No, if we can't all survive then none of us will?" No, they'd save 90% of their population. And if you don't believe that they'd make judegment calls on which people to save you're living in cloud cukoo land. There'd be age criteria, health criteria, occupational criteria.

Horrible as it is, if it was a choice between the death of humanity and giving in, I'd give in, because while the 456 will come back, next time we might be more ready for them, or if not the next time then the time after that, or the time after that. And eventually we will be able to resist them.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I think we have an obligation to save as many people as we can but not at the calculated expense of others.

In your vaccine scenario, no one is being selected to die. The vaccine will be used until it is gone. That there is not enough to go around is a tragedy.

In the 456 scenario, the government does not have the right to compel anyone to die for the rest of humanity. Individuals own their own lives & their own bodies. It is not up to the government to decide which majority will live & which minority will die. The government has the responsibility to protect ALL of its citizens, not just the majority that is easy to save.

 

[Starkers]

I think we have an obligation to save as many people as we can but not at the calculated expense of others.

In your vaccine scenario, no one is being selected to die. The vaccine will be used until it is gone. That there is not enough to go around is a tragedy.

In the 456 scenario, the government does not have the right to compel anyone to die for the rest of humanity. Individuals own their own lives & their own bodies. It is not up to the government to decide which majority will live & which minority will die. The government has the responsibility to protect ALL of its citizens, not just the majority that is easy to save.

Sorry but that's naive. Governments make decisions all the time that are calculated to save the many at the expense of the few.

If the US airforce had had the opportunity to shoot down the planes on 911 should they not have taken that option? And don't argue that the passengers would have died anyway because that's the same argument as the 456 ones.

any government has finite resourses to spend, and must decide where best to utilise them. In some instances this is the difference between life and death. Take the NHS, it can't fund every drug that every person needs, so prioritisation is given to the drugs with the highest success rates that would help the many. Does the US government give it's soldiers the absolute best equipment, or does it scrimpt on body armour to afford better guns, for example.

 

[Bones2]

I would have resisted the 456 to the bitter end. I would have attempted every conceivable military & scientific option. I would have suspected that 456 was bluffing anyway.

They're so obviously more powerful and advanced that you would have been condemning the world to certain death.

As has been noted by others, it seems strange that a species capable of creating a virus to destroy humanity would be incapable of cloning their own children.

That's what's known in the trade as a plot hole. A big one.

It also seems strange that such a supposedly powerful species would need our cooperation to abduct the children.

Another plot hole. Or, if you prefer the rationalisation I made up at the time, then as odd as it sounds, it may reflect a base sort of morality on their part.

And if the 456 had carried out their threat to wipe-out humanity, that would have left them at square one anyway.

And us even more worse off.

There was so much about them & their demands that didn't add up.

Plot holes. There's much about the whole show that didn't add up.

I think it was foolish to accept what they said at face value. And even if everything they said was true, their demands were still unacceptable.

If the alternative is that we all die, it's the lesser of two evils. This is why I don't see the cabinet scenes as some sort of shocking comment on the depravity of those politicians that make it to the top. They were deciding what had to be decided, because they had to. It's only the obvious character assassination of the PM later that showed to me what RTD meant for the cabinet discussion to show about them.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Take the NHS, it can't fund every drug that every person needs, so prioritisation is given to the drugs with the highest success rates that would help the many.

And people wonder why Americans hold the British health care system in such disdain. This is rediculous! The government cannot claim responsibility for the health care of all its citizens and then abdicate that responsibility to some of them just because it's not cost effective.

Another plot hole. Or, if you prefer the rationalisation I made up at the time, then as odd as it sounds, it may reflect a base sort of morality on their part.

So why should we compromise our morality to satisfy theirs? If they want the kids, they can damn well try to take them themselves.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

If the US airforce had had the opportunity to shoot down the planes on 911 should they not have taken that option? And don't argue that the passengers would have died anyway because that's the same argument as the 456 ones.

The difference there is that the government didn't choose who was going to be on that plane.

It's one thing to sacrifice a few lives to save many. But nothing gives the government the right to decide which few.

Perhaps there would be some individual moral responsibility for children to volunteer themselves to save the rest of humanity. But no one can make that choice for them.

 

[Bones2]

Another plot hole. Or, if you prefer the rationalisation I made up at the time, then as odd as it sounds, it may reflect a base sort of morality on their part.

So why should we compromise our morality to satisfy theirs? If they want the kids, they can damn well try to take them themselves.

They're being kind enough to give us the choice. If they tried to take them themselves, they probably could, and we'd all be killed.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^There's nothing kind about what they did. I'm horrified at any society, human or alien, that thinks it can make value judgments about who is more or less beneficial to society.

 

[Bones2]

Yes, I don't mean kind by any reasonable moral standard we would except.

But if they view humans as a lesser species they could wipe out if they so desired, then by not just stealing every child and laying waste to the planet, and giving the ultimatum of "10% or die", that could well be a screwed up morality to the 456.

Or a plot hole. As I said above.

 

[wamdue]

I had a Torchwood esque dream last year, it was the sequel dream (in that followed up on another dream), in the dream something awful has happened to society, and there was the feeling we might all be dead tomorrow, so among other things in the dream, (including my buying some DVDs, but then taking them back as I didnt really want them) PC Tony Stamp being with one group of survivors, (it was unclear if it was Tony Stamp, or the actor in costume) are trapped in a large building (possibly a hotel) it was attacked by Weevils.

I dont really recall much else.