Torchwood Children of Earth Ending: What would you have done?

[Snaploud]

*spoilers for the mini-series, obviously*

Put yourself in the place of various characters:

The Prime Minister

An Average Parent

Captain Jack Harkness

One of the Civil Servants in the Big Meeting (where they discussed which children would be selected, etc.)

What would you have done? This question applies to both during and after the events of Children of Earth (the 'after' being how you would have responded to the government's choices).

 

[Jim Steele]

i wuld hav foned der doctor and he wud hav saved everywun and den we wud has had cake dat wud hav ben a beter endins cus i r a fucking retard who completely missed the point


Serious answer - after the event, as the Prime Minister I would have resigned and awaited my summoning to The Hague.

As an average parent I would feel thoroughly betrayed by the entire political system... mortally so. I'd start home schooling and probably become massively over protective to the point of harming my child's social development.

As one of the civil servants... I'd feel sick. Possibly suicidal. Perhaps I'd be glad though that I got away with it. I mean, it wasn't my fault I was called to that room! And... and I didn't say anything really. I was too scared! There were men with guns and -

 

[Sci]

Were I the Prime Minister, I may well have decided to call the 456's bluff. Because, really, the fact that they came back and that they're junkies proves that they can't be trusted not to pull something like that again, and again, and again, and again. At some point, either the 456 will have to invade (because the loss of ten percent of the world's children is just not something that can be kept secret, especially if it becomes a recurring event, and it will inevitably lead to a popular revolt), or we'll find out that they're bluffing and they couldn't actually back up their genocidal claims.

Because, really, at the end of the day, if they're not stopped, humanity is screwed anyway. Where is the logic in abetting the 456's crimes if it will inevitably lead to the same result as fighting them? Better to fight them and therefore die with moral integrity than to slowly go extinct from perpetuating their abuses.

 

[Starkers]

Calling their bluff was an option, I doubt the 456 would have wiped out the planet as they threatened. Not that I doubt they could have. They have intersteller travel, the ability to control (in a limited way) the children of an entire planet from distance, and they had the ability to release a lethal toxin at will...of course we have no way of knowing how lethal it would be outside of an enclosed space like Thames House but would you want to bet against it? I suspect the 456 response would have been to slowly up the ante. Much as the junkie mugger maybe doesn't shoot you right away if you refuse to give him your wallet, perhaps he pistol whips you first. So perhaps they wipe out a city, then another. Eventually one of three outcomes occurs.

1. The 456 say "sod this for a game of soldiers" and bugger off leaving the earth intact. (The junkie mugger runs away)

2. The 456 say "sod this for a game of soldiers" and bugger off blowing the Earth apart first. (The junkie mugger shoots you then runs away)

3. The people of earth make a colective decision to salvage humanity at the cost of 10% of their children. (You wife shouts "Oh for god's sake give him your wallet, Charles." The mugger takes your wallet and runs.)

At the end of the day all the talk of fighting them and retaining moral integrity is rubbish. Some people would, yes, but the majority would cave in. Throughout history small weak nations/ towns/villages have been pillaged by those stronger and more vicious. Some fought, but I suspect most gave the brigands what they wanted. The village elder sacrificing his comliest daughter to save his other three children. Is it self perpetuating, yes, the brigands will always come back until you are able to fight back, you die, or they find richer pickings elsewhere.

It isn't nice, it isn't fair, and maybe Jean Luc Picard wouldn't approve, but that's the reality of the situation. And its not even like we had anyone to fight. Unless the 456 in thames House was the only one, then you have to assume there are plenty more. They might have a whole battle fleet, or they might have one scout ship, but if you can't see it you can't hit it.

Is it right to comdemn 90% of the world's children to death for moral integrity? That's what I adore about Children of Eearth. RTD and co created a scenario for which there was no real solution.

Fight back and maybe you all die, or maybe the 456 run away.

Give them the children and they will return, but maybe you're ready for them next time, assuming civillisation doesn't collapse into anarchy in the meantime.

Of course I'm looking at this at the big picture level, ignoring the fact that these are children being sent to a hellish fate, but I guess thats what the world leaders had to do, look at the bigger picture. They way the British (and probaly most other) governments went about it was shitty and they should be punished for the decisions they made about how to fill the 456's order, but I don't think they can be castigated for choosing the lesser of two evils when it came to giving in.

Perhaps I'm too optimistic about humanity as well, because I don't think the loss of 10% of our children would have destroyed humanity. Altered it, yes, quite radically, and probably not in a good way but destroyed it, no. Millions died in WW1, WW2, 50 million in 1918 from Spanish flu, but we're still here.

And the 456 was right, we let kids die everyday, because we don't care, because we want cheap clothes and cheap food, because we don't want to give up our wealth, becacasue we're too busy arguing about things on the internet , all the 456 were doing was making us make the decision to kill them conciously, and making us make the decision about our kids, not the ones in poor countries. (I still think RTD missed a trick. Nick Brigg's character should have said something like..."you know there are X number of children in Africa...")

 

[Shazam!]

I would've let them take as many kids as they want because kids are annoying.

 

[Sci]

Calling their bluff was an option, I doubt the 456 would have wiped out the planet as they threatened. Not that I doubt they could have. They have intersteller travel, the ability to control (in a limited way) the children of an entire planet from distance, and they had the ability to release a lethal toxin at will...of course we have no way of knowing how lethal it would be outside of an enclosed space like Thames House but would you want to bet against it? I suspect the 456 response would have been to slowly up the ante. Much as the junkie mugger maybe doesn't shoot you right away if you refuse to give him your wallet, perhaps he pistol whips you first. So perhaps they wipe out a city, then another. Eventually one of three outcomes occurs.

1. The 456 say "sod this for a game of soldiers" and bugger off leaving the earth intact. (The junkie mugger runs away)

2. The 456 say "sod this for a game of soldiers" and bugger off blowing the Earth apart first. (The junkie mugger shoots you then runs away)

3. The people of earth make a colective decision to salvage humanity at the cost of 10% of their children. (You wife shouts "Oh for god's sake give him your wallet, Charles." The mugger takes your wallet and runs.)

At the end of the day all the talk of fighting them and retaining moral integrity is rubbish. Some people would, yes, but the majority would cave in. Throughout history small weak nations/ towns/villages have been pillaged by those stronger and more vicious. Some fought, but I suspect most gave the brigands what they wanted. The village elder sacrificing his comliest daughter to save his other three children. Is it self perpetuating, yes, the brigands will always come back until you are able to fight back, you die, or they find richer pickings elsewhere.

It isn't nice, it isn't fair, and maybe Jean Luc Picard wouldn't approve, but that's the reality of the situation. And its not even like we had anyone to fight. Unless the 456 in thames House was the only one, then you have to assume there are plenty more. They might have a whole battle fleet, or they might have one scout ship, but if you can't see it you can't hit it.

Is it right to comdemn 90% of the world's children to death for moral integrity? That's what I adore about Children of Eearth. RTD and co created a scenario for which there was no real solution.

Fight back and maybe you all die, or maybe the 456 run away.

Give them the children and they will return, but maybe you're ready for them next time, assuming civillisation doesn't collapse into anarchy in the meantime.

Of course I'm looking at this at the big picture level, ignoring the fact that these are children being sent to a hellish fate, but I guess thats what the world leaders had to do, look at the bigger picture. They way the British (and probaly most other) governments went about it was shitty and they should be punished for the decisions they made about how to fill the 456's order, but I don't think they can be castigated for choosing the lesser of two evils when it came to giving in.

Perhaps I'm too optimistic about humanity as well, because I don't think the loss of 10% of our children would have destroyed humanity. Altered it, yes, quite radically, and probably not in a good way but destroyed it, no. Millions died in WW1, WW2, 50 million in 1918 from Spanish flu, but we're still here.

And the 456 was right, we let kids die everyday, because we don't care, because we want cheap clothes and cheap food, because we don't want to give up our wealth, becacasue we're too busy arguing about things on the internet , all the 456 were doing was making us make the decision to kill them conciously, and making us make the decision about our kids, not the ones in poor countries. (I still think RTD missed a trick. Nick Brigg's character should have said something like..."you know there are X number of children in Africa...")

Of course, all that's predicated on the notion that obedience to the 456's demands will not also result in human extinction -- but I'm not convinced it would. Frankly, seems to me that eventually, there would be a mass revolt against the governments facilitating the abduction of the 456s' victims -- and at that point, it would be impossible to even meet the 456s' demands anyway. The 456 would then either react by wiping out humanity, devastating humanity, or not doing anything and running away. In the long run, even cooperating with them will fail, due to internal pressures. People just won't put up with losing 10% of their children.

 

[stj]

In the cabinet meeting, there was the line "What are the school league tables for?" The school league tables, as the story explicitly says, are for determining which kids are to be labeled lower class. And, as the story metaphorically says, they get plugged into a system that uses them for its own benefit. In a thematically honest ending, the kids are sacrificed, with Gwen and Reece killed in a vain attempt to protect Ianto's niece and nephew, while Jack's grandson is saved by his refusal to publicize the tapes. And everybody knows that the 456 will indeed come again and they will sacrifice the children again, because that's just how life works.

The miniseries presumes the 456 are too powerful to be bluffing. Jack's "sacrifice" is only different from the Peter Capaldi character in that, he, Captain Jack Harkness, is the cool dude who is a hero and Peter Capaldi plays nebbishy losers. Jack gets to enforce the system, while getting kudos for bravely shouldering the burden of guilt in doing the dirty work society requires. When Lois confronts the cabinet, a guy mockingly asks if she's a revolutionary. The pointlessness of Lois' tapes (or for that matter, the pointlessness of Gwen and Reece's efforts, even though they implausibly escaped any consequences,) and Bridget's tapes reinforce the presumption that the system (metaphorically, the 456) is too powerful to fight. Bridget, after all, only succeeds in getting Green replaced, and by one who was even worse.

The invincibleness of the 456 (and metaphorically, the current social system) is not a stroke of genius that illuminates how it really is. It is a political statement. When Ianto's sister and brother-in-law play with mass resistance, the show is playing with real drama. But in the end it just goes with Captain Jack emo.

 

[Starkers]

Calling their bluff was an option, I doubt the 456 would have wiped out the planet as they threatened. Not that I doubt they could have. They have intersteller travel, the ability to control (in a limited way) the children of an entire planet from distance, and they had the ability to release a lethal toxin at will...of course we have no way of knowing how lethal it would be outside of an enclosed space like Thames House but would you want to bet against it? I suspect the 456 response would have been to slowly up the ante. Much as the junkie mugger maybe doesn't shoot you right away if you refuse to give him your wallet, perhaps he pistol whips you first. So perhaps they wipe out a city, then another. Eventually one of three outcomes occurs.

1. The 456 say "sod this for a game of soldiers" and bugger off leaving the earth intact. (The junkie mugger runs away)

2. The 456 say "sod this for a game of soldiers" and bugger off blowing the Earth apart first. (The junkie mugger shoots you then runs away)

3. The people of earth make a colective decision to salvage humanity at the cost of 10% of their children. (You wife shouts "Oh for god's sake give him your wallet, Charles." The mugger takes your wallet and runs.)

At the end of the day all the talk of fighting them and retaining moral integrity is rubbish. Some people would, yes, but the majority would cave in. Throughout history small weak nations/ towns/villages have been pillaged by those stronger and more vicious. Some fought, but I suspect most gave the brigands what they wanted. The village elder sacrificing his comliest daughter to save his other three children. Is it self perpetuating, yes, the brigands will always come back until you are able to fight back, you die, or they find richer pickings elsewhere.

It isn't nice, it isn't fair, and maybe Jean Luc Picard wouldn't approve, but that's the reality of the situation. And its not even like we had anyone to fight. Unless the 456 in thames House was the only one, then you have to assume there are plenty more. They might have a whole battle fleet, or they might have one scout ship, but if you can't see it you can't hit it.

Is it right to comdemn 90% of the world's children to death for moral integrity? That's what I adore about Children of Eearth. RTD and co created a scenario for which there was no real solution.

Fight back and maybe you all die, or maybe the 456 run away.

Give them the children and they will return, but maybe you're ready for them next time, assuming civillisation doesn't collapse into anarchy in the meantime.

Of course I'm looking at this at the big picture level, ignoring the fact that these are children being sent to a hellish fate, but I guess thats what the world leaders had to do, look at the bigger picture. They way the British (and probaly most other) governments went about it was shitty and they should be punished for the decisions they made about how to fill the 456's order, but I don't think they can be castigated for choosing the lesser of two evils when it came to giving in.

Perhaps I'm too optimistic about humanity as well, because I don't think the loss of 10% of our children would have destroyed humanity. Altered it, yes, quite radically, and probably not in a good way but destroyed it, no. Millions died in WW1, WW2, 50 million in 1918 from Spanish flu, but we're still here.

And the 456 was right, we let kids die everyday, because we don't care, because we want cheap clothes and cheap food, because we don't want to give up our wealth, becacasue we're too busy arguing about things on the internet , all the 456 were doing was making us make the decision to kill them conciously, and making us make the decision about our kids, not the ones in poor countries. (I still think RTD missed a trick. Nick Brigg's character should have said something like..."you know there are X number of children in Africa...")

Of course, all that's predicated on the notion that obedience to the 456's demands will not also result in human extinction -- but I'm not convinced it would. Frankly, seems to me that eventually, there would be a mass revolt against the governments facilitating the abduction of the 456s' victims -- and at that point, it would be impossible to even meet the 456s' demands anyway. The 456 would then either react by wiping out humanity, devastating humanity, or not doing anything and running away. In the long run, even cooperating with them will fail, due to internal pressures. People just won't put up with losing 10% of their children.

Anyone who overthrew the government would be faced with the same choices and would likely do the same things, there's a reason revolutionaries so often become dictators.

Perhaps its the writer in me but I keep wondering about rhe possibilities, how would a society where perpetually the 456 came back handle it? Obviously they'd try to fight back, but in the mean time? Birth rates shoot up as everyone is required by law to provide a child to the tithe? Introduction of mindless clone children (would they provide the 456 with what they crave I wonder?) ehtnic cleansing on a global scale? Strong nations banding togeather to invade weaker ones to capture all their children? Children bred like Afghan poppies? Would we come to a point where we would essentially sell children to the 456 in exchange for technology?

Of course I think the big decider on how much impact this had would be how often the 456 came back. If they were going to come back in 5 years time then I'd agree humanity probably couldn't cope, but what if they didn't return for a century? They made 11 kids last then 45 years after all, and whilst I imagine their plan was to go from addicts to dealers, still they might make those 10% last a long time. Who knows, perhaps they determined that mankind was on the verge of becoming powerful enough to fend them off so they planned one big smash and grab never to return?

Do have to stress, I'm looking at this from a purely hypothetical big picture stance. In reality I like to hope I'd be shoulder to shoulder with PC Andy

 

[Jim Steele]

Very much enjoying your posts in this thread, Starkers.

 

[stj]

If 456 can make the kids talk in unison, they can make them walk in unison to the pickup points, and take the ones who get there. The whole dilemma has an artificiality, even within the fiction, that calls into question the whole point, except to affirm, in the end, the guy who nobly shoulders the burden of evil is the hero.

 

[Starkers]

If 456 can make the kids talk in unison, they can make them walk in unison to the pickup points, and take the ones who get there. The whole dilemma has an artificiality, even within the fiction, that calls into question the whole point, except to affirm, in the end, the guy who nobly shoulders the burden of evil is the hero.

They could make the children freeze, point, and utter a few words. It's possible it took an enormous amount of power just to do that, and they simply couldn't order them all to pick up points.

 

[Starkers]

Very much enjoying your posts in this thread, Starkers.

Thanks...I think

 

[Jim Steele]

If 456 can make the kids talk in unison, they can make them walk in unison to the pickup points

I wouldn't be so certain of that. We have no idea how their tech works, or why it only works on children. Perhaps articulating speech centres in the child's native tongue is easier than making their motor functions work.

 

[Jim Steele]

Very much enjoying your posts in this thread, Starkers.

Thanks...I think

I'm not coming on to you, promise...

 

[Starkers]

ha ha

 

[The Badger]

Of course I think the big decider on how much impact this had would be how often the 456 came back. If they were going to come back in 5 years time then I'd agree humanity probably couldn't cope, but what if they didn't return for a century? They made 11 kids last then 45 years after all, and whilst I imagine their plan was to go from addicts to dealers, still they might make those 10% last a long time. Who knows, perhaps they determined that mankind was on the verge of becoming powerful enough to fend them off so they planned one big smash and grab never to return?

That's a good point. We've been looking at this as if the 456 were simply junkies who require a regular fix. But as I think was said in the series each kid attached to a 456 would not age or sicken. So perhaps the 10% would be all that their species want.

Alternatively, given the 45 years between visits, perhaps the 456 have other 'sources'. The first contact was to determine whether or not humans were suitable. The timing of the second visit maybe due to many other factors. They may have other sources closer to home, but perhaps one of these rebelled and was wiped out. Or perhaps the 456 have increased in numbers to the point where the sources they already have are insufficient, and they have to turn to new ones.

If so, then they probably were not bluffing in their threat to exterminate humanity. If we hand over the kids, we are a useful resource. If not, we are of no value to them. Releasing a plague seems very easy to them, and it may keep other species in line.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I'd have told them to fuck off, on the grounds that if they could just have taken what they wanted then they would have.

But I'd also have offered a bargaining chip - co-operate with research into what it is about the kids that gets the 456 high, to create a more artificial fix (ideally from something we want rid of, like nuclear waste or something) that doesn't involve children

Then sell that to them in return for advanced technology....

 

[Sci]

Anyone who overthrew the government would be faced with the same choices and would likely do the same things,

What makes you think there would even be someone to replace the government? Frankly, I'm arguing that that kind of continuous treason against their populations would probably plunge the entire planet into one giant civil war. There wouldn't even be governments anymore to be making those decisions. The 456s would have no one to talk to because the Humans would all be too busy shooting each other. The world's states would cease to exist.

In the cabinet meeting, there was the line "What are the school league tables for?" The school league tables, as the story explicitly says, are for determining which kids are to be labeled lower class. And, as the story metaphorically says, they get plugged into a system that uses them for its own benefit. In a thematically honest ending, the kids are sacrificed, with Gwen and Reece killed in a vain attempt to protect Ianto's niece and nephew, while Jack's grandson is saved by his refusal to publicize the tapes. And everybody knows that the 456 will indeed come again and they will sacrifice the children again, because that's just how life works.

The miniseries presumes the 456 are too powerful to be bluffing. Jack's "sacrifice" is only different from the Peter Capaldi character in that, he, Captain Jack Harkness, is the cool dude who is a hero and Peter Capaldi plays nebbishy losers. Jack gets to enforce the system, while getting kudos for bravely shouldering the burden of guilt in doing the dirty work society requires. When Lois confronts the cabinet, a guy mockingly asks if she's a revolutionary. The pointlessness of Lois' tapes (or for that matter, the pointlessness of Gwen and Reece's efforts, even though they implausibly escaped any consequences,) and Bridget's tapes reinforce the presumption that the system (metaphorically, the 456) is too powerful to fight. Bridget, after all, only succeeds in getting Green replaced, and by one who was even worse.

The invincibleness of the 456 (and metaphorically, the current social system) is not a stroke of genius that illuminates how it really is. It is a political statement. When Ianto's sister and brother-in-law play with mass resistance, the show is playing with real drama. But in the end it just goes with Captain Jack emo.

Yes, stj, Children of Earth was just another anti-revolutionary, pro-establishment piece of propaganda. Just like everything not written by Che Guvera or Lenin.

If 456 can make the kids talk in unison, they can make them walk in unison to the pickup points, and take the ones who get there. The whole dilemma has an artificiality, even within the fiction, that calls into question the whole point, except to affirm, in the end, the guy who nobly shoulders the burden of evil is the hero.

They could make the children freeze, point, and utter a few words. It's possible it took an enormous amount of power just to do that, and they simply couldn't order them all to pick up points.

Indeed, the Whoniverse has already established a precedent for aliens capable of mass control but incapable of actually forcing anyone to harm themselves: The Sycorax from "The Christmas Invasion," who used "blood control" to mind-mojo all of the world's A-positives into standing on the edges of all of the world's buildings, but whom the Doctor said would have been unable to carry out that threat.

One wonders if perhaps the United Kingdom under a second Harriet Jones government might not have fared better in the 456 crisis and been perhaps less likely to find themselves so easily intimidated?

I'd have told them to fuck off, on the grounds that if they could just have taken what they wanted then they would have.

But I'd also have offered a bargaining chip - co-operate with research into what it is about the kids that gets the 456 high, to create a more artificial fix (ideally from something we want rid of, like nuclear waste or something) that doesn't involve children

Then sell that to them in return for advanced technology....

I like your way of thinking!

 

[Middle Earther]

Some great points and I can't think of much to add, although I have speculated that the video of the meeting that Rees did not send out, does get out to the public in some way during the next election, which results in a complete change of government. I also wonder how much of what the 456 was bluff. I also wonder if it is really a representative of the whole "456" race, which I doubt.

Jack may end up contacting the homeworld of the 456 and discover the race's actual name and motivations. He may also learn that the 456 was a criminal on its own homeworld and testify against it. In this way, Jack may be able to redeem himself and prevent future 456 intrusions on Earth.

 

[stj]

Yes, stj, Children of Earth was just another anti-revolutionary, pro-establishment piece of propaganda. Just like everything not written by Che Guvera or Lenin.

What are the school league tables for? To identify winners and losers.
This is true of real life, not just in the UK.

How is science fiction gibberish that declares it is necessary for the hero to sacrifice an innocent child to save millions true of real life? Anyhwere, not just the UK? It isn't, of course.

Whether you're more upset at the critique buried in the show, or in someone daring to disagree that the real world survival demands the murder of the innocent is irrelevant. What matters is that you value the untrue.