Revolution - season 1 part 2 -
- Thread starter DarthTom
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Nor is it likely to even work due to the FedGov's propensity for signing on the lowest bidder for a lot of defense projects. The incompetence and waste I've personally seen in that environment is staggering.
^
Sad but true.
Sad but true.
Did you try to figure out how the magic crystals in Star Trek known as "dilithium," made a star ship travel FTL - oh and sometimes they could be recharged even with the radiation from nuclear aircraft carriers?
or
How "dragon string," can make a magic wand more powerful?
Or how breathing electrical-absorbing nanites into your body (which is a big electrical system) doesn't immediately kill you.
Almost hate when these shows try to make it sound like they thought out the science and it's plausible. Just too easy to nitpick, and anyone with a functional brainstem can see the problem with the theories. I'd rather they just say it's magic, or go the Firefly route and just not talk about it at all....
When it's things like warp drive and DIL crystals, you can kinda accept it, because it's far-future tech, so essentially magic anyway. You have no basis for understanding the concepts the system works on, so can't really nitpick anything but for consistency. When it's about everyday concepts that we understand very well, you can't ask for the same suspension of disbelief. We KNOW how electricity works, so pretty easy to poke all kinds of holes in this dumb nanite scheme.
Almost hate when these shows try to make it sound like they thought out the science and it's plausible. Just too easy to nitpick, and anyone with a functional brainstem can see the problem with the theories. I'd rather they just say it's magic, or go the Firefly route and just not talk about it at all....
When it's things like warp drive and DIL crystals, you can kinda accept it, because it's far-future tech, so essentially magic anyway. You have no basis for understanding the concepts the system works on, so can't really nitpick anything but for consistency. When it's about everyday concepts that we understand very well, you can't ask for the same suspension of disbelief. We KNOW how electricity works, so pretty easy to poke all kinds of holes in this dumb nanite scheme.
I don't know what Star Trek you were watching but the one I was [especially Next Gen] was notorious for giving one outrageous techno-babble explination after another for everything.
I wish people would simply admit they don't like the show because the plot is weak rather than nitpick the techno-babble explinations in this show for the lights going off but likely giving Trek a pass on the same thing.
And I don't know what POST you were reading, but you sure as heck weren't responding to what I actually said. Not complaining about techno-babble, but how it's applied, and to which principles.
Techno-babble (while annoying at times) is ok if you don't have any basis for the principles. You can go on all day about the DIL crystals, quantum slipstream, even a flux capacitor, and as long as you're more or less consistent with yourself, no problem. Can't exactly tell them that that's not how the slipstream really works, right? Only can tell if they do it differently than they did last time. Sure, you'd PREFER they don't just use the deflector to emit whatever magical particles will fix the issue, but you can't tell them that it doesn't work like that, because they made it up...
ELECTRICITY isn't one of those magical concepts. We know how it works, and very easy to tell when they're screwing it up. But the writers don't seem to know that, and assume the viewers are too stupid to notice, either. it's not techno-babble if it's working with real, present-day science, it's just nonsense.
These things shouldn't be absorbing electricity, dumb concept. Not any method (nor size/capacity) to STORE it, or discharge it. They'd be popping like fireflies. And probably wouldn't work for 15 years after the blackout without more power sources. For that to begin to work, you'd need to be showing things generating power that just doesn't seem to provide a result (but is being absorbed). And if there's no other source, HUMANS are the next likely food source. Quadrillions of these things, and we're breathing them in. YOU are an electrical system, you'd be shorted out and dead. Lightning would be a non-existant concept, as if they're floating around in the air, they can absorb it long before the bolt forms, as there's the potential in the sky. Just a dumb way to explain the concept.
Just a small tweak somewhere would have at least bought some credability. Instead of saying they absorb electricity, just say they generate a constant low-level EMP field. That way, they're everywhere and nothing works, but it's not frying your brain. And the pendants simply shut off the nanites within range (or nulify the field, whichever you like).
Electricity /= magic. Dumb explanation.
Warp Drive = magic, explain however you wish.
Doesn't mean I don't enjoy the show for what it is, but retarded science isn't a plus. If they can't explain it, i'd rather they handwave it away rather than try.
Fair enough. But even Trek isn't consistent within its own magical techno-babble. Great example is the trasnporters. Multiple times we are drumbeat told that the process of transporting is not cloning.
But yet - in one episode it creates a duplicate Riker. So is it cloning to transport or not?
The point is - like you or someone else said upthread - writers are not scientists and they get themselves in trouble for trying to be scientists in not only Revolution but virtually every sci-fi show/movie out there.
Mister Fandango
Fleet Captain
Nope! Because 1) no one specifically said "we promise that it will all make sense" or "we asked scientists and they said it was all totally possible, so don't worry guy" and 2) none of those things are the core essence of the show nor do they even pretend that they're based on real world science.Did you try to figure out how the magic crystals in Star Trek known as "dilithium," made a star ship travel FTL - oh and sometimes they could be recharged even with the radiation from nuclear aircraft carriers?
or
How "dragon string," can make a magic wand more powerful
This show has had people say that (albeit paraphrased cause I can't be arsed to look up the exact quotes) and it is a core essence of a show trying desperately to ground itself on real world science.
They explained away that anomaly by stating that Riker's transporter beam hit some swamp gas from a weather balloon, was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
Except the nanites aren't the core of this show either. The core of Revolution is the characters and the world that the existence of the nanites has put them in, not the nanites. They're just an excuse to put the characters in this situation, much like the transporter and warp drive were excuses for the characters to be able to get to the places where the interesting stuff happened in the Star Treks. I really don't really care if the nanites are plausible or not, all I care about is that we now have a reason for blackout. It's an action adventure show, if I wanted plausible science I'd watch a Discovery channel documentary (which I actually do a lot, and really enjoy).Nope! Because 1) no one specifically said "we promise that it will all make sense" or "we asked scientists and they said it was all totally possible, so don't worry guy" and 2) none of those things are the core essence of the show nor do they even pretend that they're based on real world science.Did you try to figure out how the magic crystals in Star Trek known as "dilithium," made a star ship travel FTL - oh and sometimes they could be recharged even with the radiation from nuclear aircraft carriers?
or
How "dragon string," can make a magic wand more powerful
This show has had people say that (albeit paraphrased cause I can't be arsed to look up the exact quotes) and it is a core essence of a show trying desperately to ground itself on real world science.
They kinda ARE the core, though. The entire show is built on the blackout, and they're the cause. What's left of the show if you don't have a blackout? the "core" of Star Trek is people exploring the galaxy, and ships/transporters are just tools to do so. Core of Revolution has been repeatedly stated by the characters as trying to get the lights back on. It's in dialog constantly, it's all the advertising, it's the picture of the lights going out in the title card. All about the blackout. What people have done since, and how to get back to what we were.
And again, it's NOT that it has to be plausible, don't care about that so much. It's just that it shouldn't be blatantly impossible/stupid.
Imagine that instead of a power blackout, they decided to make a show where there's no water left in the world (yeah, also dumb, but follow along). All the oceans, rivers, lakes, just disappeared. They explain nanites absorbed (not disappated or any other term) the water. The water has to GO somewhere, so they should get bigger, right? They're in the air, floating around, so it looks stupid when it rains, right? They're in your body, which is largely water, but no harm comes to you. NONE of that strikes you as kinda dumb?
Because that's exactly what they're telling us, just swap water for electricity.
If they weren't going to run it by someone who could have pointed them towards a less stupid explaination, I'd have prefered they just say "magic" or left it unexplained, because you can't argue against that.
And again, it's NOT that it has to be plausible, don't care about that so much. It's just that it shouldn't be blatantly impossible/stupid.
Imagine that instead of a power blackout, they decided to make a show where there's no water left in the world (yeah, also dumb, but follow along). All the oceans, rivers, lakes, just disappeared. They explain nanites absorbed (not disappated or any other term) the water. The water has to GO somewhere, so they should get bigger, right? They're in the air, floating around, so it looks stupid when it rains, right? They're in your body, which is largely water, but no harm comes to you. NONE of that strikes you as kinda dumb?
Because that's exactly what they're telling us, just swap water for electricity.
If they weren't going to run it by someone who could have pointed them towards a less stupid explaination, I'd have prefered they just say "magic" or left it unexplained, because you can't argue against that.
You have to consider that the title of the show is "Revolution", which implies that an actual revolution needs to take place at some point during the course of the series. Otherwise, they only picked the name because it sounds cool and you can turn the "O" into a power symbol.
Also, they went for the cheap gimmick of making the "R" blink in the title sequence, which implies "Evolution". So the show should be about these people growing and evolving, maybe as a social commentary on how stagnant our lives are or how we lost sight of the simple things.
Both of these things NEED to happen in the show, because otherwise they are Chekhov's Guns (and not a Koenig Phaser). Luckily, it looks like we are heading towards a Season 2-type war like the one we saw in Jericho. That's a step in the right direction.
Also, they went for the cheap gimmick of making the "R" blink in the title sequence, which implies "Evolution". So the show should be about these people growing and evolving, maybe as a social commentary on how stagnant our lives are or how we lost sight of the simple things.
Both of these things NEED to happen in the show, because otherwise they are Chekhov's Guns (and not a Koenig Phaser). Luckily, it looks like we are heading towards a Season 2-type war like the one we saw in Jericho. That's a step in the right direction.
I honestly didn't really think that much about how the nanites work. I just thought OK nanites, and then moved on. I don't deny that if you think about it they probably don't really work, and might be kinda dumb, but I never really think about that kind of stuff when I'm experiencing a story so I really don't care.The only time I ever really consider that kind of stuff is when it's so obvious that you can't help but notice, and that wasn't the case for me here. I'm not trying to defend them, I'm just don't care if they make technical sense.
Right here. I suggested nanites as one of a few possible culprits after the pilot, and nailed it down as nanites by the second episode.
And despite Mr. Fandango's still bizarrely angry comments about the people who suggested it as an explanation, I specifically said multiple times that the show wouldn't actually follow the laws of physics like the showrunners claimed even when things were finally explained (see the first link above). I said it would be a piecemeal hybrid of scientific terms, pseudoscience, and pure magic just like Lost.
The existence of the Monroe Republic would seem to support that point.
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