Then the abduction makes no sense at all. That's like saying "let's make Hitler miss a day of school as a child and see if that prevents WW2".
Spoilers DC's Legends of Tomorrow - Season 1
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
That's the characters not foreseeing their own stupid actions. Rip has done nothing to convince me that he's anything but a complete idiot.
1. Throw an asteroid at the nations capital.
2. Use advanced hacking to redistribute the nations wealth or shut down the robots the first time you were at the robot base/factory.
3. "Try" to kill Vandal in such a way, publicly, that it becomes clear that he is not human. I'm assuming if you cut his head off, it will grow back? Kings are not happy about other kings ####ing with their shit.
4... How is Vandal still alive? If this is a time line that exists because these people never returned to 2016, then Vandal hasn't killed/eaten a Hawk in 130 years unless a past version of him ate a future version of this Kendra, but he seems fine... Although, his accent is less fucked up? And after 4000 years of trying to get some whoopee with Kendra, he finally buckles down and takes over the world. Is it possible that up till now, that it was his own raging boner that saved the world? Meanwhile, if These crazy kids are ever returned to their home time-zone, they will unseat the good future that they have victoriously created. In the final act, Rip has to kill his team mates as well, to keep his son saved.
5. Release the Armageddon Virus on the Kasnian Conglomerate.
6. Use future knowledge, hacked wealth, to stage a hostile takeover of the conglomerate. Unseat Tor Degaton and install a friendly puppet.
7. Replace Per Degaton with a robot or clonemeat, or just brainwash the kid better to work for the Legends rather than Vandal Savage.
8. Bomb or poison the Shareholders meeting as it happened early in the episode. If they are in a massive leadership upheaval, they will be in no condition to wage war, even if Vandal Savage is top dog.
9. Enlist the second most powerful nation, show them how to defeat/invade Kasnia successfully using intelligence from enhanced monitoring technology aboard the Wave Rider and history books.
10. If 40 million people are supposed to die from the virus. Relocate them to 2260 whatever, and arm them well enough to Fight Vandal Savage to the finish, when he the least the hell expects it.
2. Use advanced hacking to redistribute the nations wealth or shut down the robots the first time you were at the robot base/factory.
3. "Try" to kill Vandal in such a way, publicly, that it becomes clear that he is not human. I'm assuming if you cut his head off, it will grow back? Kings are not happy about other kings ####ing with their shit.
4... How is Vandal still alive? If this is a time line that exists because these people never returned to 2016, then Vandal hasn't killed/eaten a Hawk in 130 years unless a past version of him ate a future version of this Kendra, but he seems fine... Although, his accent is less fucked up? And after 4000 years of trying to get some whoopee with Kendra, he finally buckles down and takes over the world. Is it possible that up till now, that it was his own raging boner that saved the world? Meanwhile, if These crazy kids are ever returned to their home time-zone, they will unseat the good future that they have victoriously created. In the final act, Rip has to kill his team mates as well, to keep his son saved.
5. Release the Armageddon Virus on the Kasnian Conglomerate.
6. Use future knowledge, hacked wealth, to stage a hostile takeover of the conglomerate. Unseat Tor Degaton and install a friendly puppet.
7. Replace Per Degaton with a robot or clonemeat, or just brainwash the kid better to work for the Legends rather than Vandal Savage.
8. Bomb or poison the Shareholders meeting as it happened early in the episode. If they are in a massive leadership upheaval, they will be in no condition to wage war, even if Vandal Savage is top dog.
9. Enlist the second most powerful nation, show them how to defeat/invade Kasnia successfully using intelligence from enhanced monitoring technology aboard the Wave Rider and history books.
10. If 40 million people are supposed to die from the virus. Relocate them to 2260 whatever, and arm them well enough to Fight Vandal Savage to the finish, when he the least the hell expects it.
There are two theories about history. One is that history is shaped primarily by individual leaders, the other is that history is shaped more by socio-economic conditions. Rip seems to believe the former which is why he focuses on individuals. His entire mission in fact is focused only on stopping one person, Vandal Savage. Rip is only looking at Savage's role in history. Similarly, in this episode, Rip only focus on the kid and the role he will play in history. Clearly, this approach is not working. I agree that the idea that if you kidnap the kid for a little time that it would prevent Savage from taking over is ludicrous. Rip should consider the other theory and look at how socio-economic conditions facilitated Savage's rise to power. It is interesting that the episode compares the kid to Hitler. If you look at WW2, Hitler of course was a central figure but there were many environmental factors that facilitated his rise to power. Likewise, we know a few things about the world in 2146. First, we know that it is very polarized with a rich, powerful elite living in cities while the majority of the population live outside the cities in abject poverty. So why not try to arm the local population with advanced weapons since they outnumber the corporations, and plant the seed of democracy so that when the masses succeed in overthrowing the corporations, they set up a more democratic system? Or, we know that the world is controlled by corporations. Why not go back and stop that corporation from taking over? Rip could go back in time and buy the corporation when it is worth pennies on the dollar. Heck, why not go back and stop the kid from being born rather than kill or kidnap him? You have a time machine, Rip, think outside the box!
The bottom line is that Rip is a completely incompetent time-traveller. It would be comical if the circumstances were not so tragic.
They, talked about changing the kid for the better.
I was expecting them to "scrooge" him.
Take him on a trip through time and show him the consequences of his actions in the present.
Also how can killing 40 million people make a dent in a population that is likely doubled in 150 years from our current 7 billion?
That plan is stupid. Unless the virus plan was actually a failure and was supposed to kill a whole lot more.
I was expecting them to "scrooge" him.
Take him on a trip through time and show him the consequences of his actions in the present.
Also how can killing 40 million people make a dent in a population that is likely doubled in 150 years from our current 7 billion?
That plan is stupid. Unless the virus plan was actually a failure and was supposed to kill a whole lot more.
I would also add that Rip must be a terrible chess player because he never even tries to think a few moves ahead. When considering his plan to kidnap the kid, he should have at least thought about some important questions. What if the kid won't listen to reason? Could kidnapping him confirm the idea that he needs to be tough against his enemies and therefore push him closer to Savage? When Savage learns that the kid has been kidnapped, what actions might he take? Might he try to take over the conglomerate himself, thinking that the kid is no longer an option? I realize that Rip cannot know everything but he should at least try to plan for some obvious contingencies. Instead, he seems to rush in without thinking and then has to fix things when everything goes wrong.
Doctor Who went to the year One Hundred Trillion AD.
The baddies were still using AK-47s.
You gotta think about how patents work, and what happens when a patent lapses and the "design" enters the common domain when 3D printers are 130 years more advanced than they are now.
A company could spend millions designing new slug throwers, but unless the laws of physics have changed, a purely mechanical, non computerized weapon like a p90 ain't going to get that much better unless it's constructed with lighter stronger metals, which would only be necessary if you planned on using the P90 to fire completely different bullets.
So the choices are...
1. Print using a free patent for an old gun, you've printed by the thousand.
2. Print using an active patent you have stolen or paid for, by the thousand, or purchased from the patent holder/some one else manufactured by the thousand.
3. Try to print a modern unprintable weapon that cannot be printed because it has rare materials, overly complex moving parts, or even propriety software because it's also mostly a computer too. If a patent holder is planning on spending millions in R&D to make billions, or given inflation, billions to make trillions... They would take a firm view on piracy or knockoffs, and try to keep at least one step ahead of that crowd.
You guys are putting far more thought into this than the writers did.
I read recently that, at the time Hitler was born and raised, the prevailing philosophy of child-rearing in that part of the world was that children should be regularly beaten and severely disciplined. Basically a whole generation or more was subjected to severe child abuse as a normalized and encouraged practice -- and as we now know, victims of abuse often tend to become victimizers. It's horrifying, but it explains a lot, not only about Hitler but about why his pathology attracted so many followers. And it makes it pretty clear to me that if you removed Hitler from history, there would be a number of other, very similar people who could've taken his place and done basically the same things. In fact, it might've made things worse, because Hitler was actually a pretty inept leader.
Rip does seem to know this in principle, since he keeps talking about how "time wants to happen." He just doesn't seem well-equipped to apply it in practice. Stein did suggest looking into altering the larger socioeconomic conditions that led to Per Degaton's tyranny, but Rip waved the suggestion aside. I think he's too driven by his personal vendetta -- Savage killed his son, so he wanted to kill Savage's protege. The reason he's so focused on individuals is because his quest is so personal -- which, yes, does make him a pretty poor choice for it.
On the other hand, to be fair, this is an action-drama series, and so it has to focus on personal conflicts, because a show about subtly intervening to affect long-term sociohistorical patterns wouldn't hold audience interest enough to sell cars or beer or insurance or whatever the heck they advertise on the commercials I try to ignore.
I'm not too familiar with Per Degaton -- his only other screen appearance was in Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "The Golden Age of Justice!" in 2010, where he was voiced by Clancy Brown. I vaguely recall coming across the character's name sometime before then, though, so maybe he was name-dropped but not seen in some earlier DC TV show. Anyway, apparently he's a Justice Society villain introduced in the '40s, and in the comics he's a time-traveling tyrant. So it's a bit ironic to see him treated here as a potential victim of time travelers.
Or maybe... Hmm. Interesting thought:
Presumably the season will end with the team preventing Vandal Savage's conquest... which might mean they'd prevent him from killing Per Degaton. But maybe they'd do it in a way that would preserve Per Degaton's memory of being abducted by time travelers. And maybe that would lead to Degaton becoming a time traveler himself in some way, and he would then become the big bad of season 2. The team would be motivated to stop him because they'd been responsible for his creation.
In the comics, Degaton was the lab assistant of a professor who invented a time machine in the 1940s. Degaton stories--a couple in the Golden Age and then more retroactive ones when Roy Thomas brought him back in All-Star Squadron--typically involved him killing the professor, stealing the machine, and trying to alter history to his benefit as a would-be conqueror. Ultimately the heroes would undo his schemes in such a way that he's wind up back in his lab assistant role, thinking he'd just dreamed the whole thing. "Stop mumbling, Degaton, and wash these test tubes like a good fellow."
On that note, it would have been fitting if they'd taken Boy Degaton back to the appropriate time that he grew up to become that lab assistant....
On that note, it would have been fitting if they'd taken Boy Degaton back to the appropriate time that he grew up to become that lab assistant....
Good analysis.
True. And I am not suggesting that the show not have any action or drama. Clearly, those things are very important. But maybe showing the team cleverly manipulating the socio-economic factors that led to the rise of Savage, could add a "smarter" element to the show. I know one of the things that I love about Asimov's Foundation Series is how to describes the socio-economic factors in the rise and fall of an empire.
Time is literally fluid according to the rules we learnt a couple episodes ago when she saw all those Soviet Firestorms destroying Starling City.
When Time travellers start fiddling, smudging maybe shit that isn't rigidly a certainty placeholds up the timeline until "a couple hours" have passed and the maybe future firms into an inevitability unless the traveller/s keep fiddling, keeping the future unlocked.
When Time travellers start fiddling, smudging maybe shit that isn't rigidly a certainty placeholds up the timeline until "a couple hours" have passed and the maybe future firms into an inevitability unless the traveller/s keep fiddling, keeping the future unlocked.
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pre-empted in Chicago for a lackluster Bulls team playing Miami in a game they were sure to lose.
That's surprising. "Per Degaton" is such an unusual name (to my eyes) that I figured he was meant to have some more exotic origin. Although I looked up the names, and it seems that "Per" is a given name of Scandinavian origin, a variant of "Peter." And I did find a few entries for people named Degaton, although in a couple of cases it was DeGaton, suggesting maybe a French origin. Which makes me wonder if the actors here and in Batman: The Brave and the Bold weren't mispronouncing his name. Maybe the character's creators John Broome and Irwin Hasen intended something more like "Pair De-Gat-on" than "Purr Deg-a-ton."
That's what i was hoping... maybe for some reason drop him off during the great depression, and history does NOT record him as anyone of importance...but it would be because his actions keep getting time-erased.
(I only know of Degaton through the comics like All Star Squadron)
And they might have even tied him in with those Hawk Family flashbacks...I'm not sure exactly when those were taking place, but roughly the right period for the Once and Future Hawks to have been involved with Past Degaton.
According to Thomas, IIRC, it rhymed with "Megaton". Not sure offhand if he might have been getting that from the original story.
Impossible, since Per Degaton was introduced in 1947 and the word "megaton" wasn't coined until 1952 (it wasn't needed until that year, when the first H-bomb was detonated).
I'm not sure why that matters at all. Just because the word didn't exist at the time the name was first used, that doesn't mean it doesn't rhyme with megaton (which did clearly exist when the fellow said it rhymed with it).