Trip's Hometown & the Xindi Attack

[Ro_Laren]

Trip's hometown of Panama City was supposed to be destroyed in the Xindi attack right? Here is the pic of Trip showing Malcolm his hometown after the attack:

But look at where Panama City is actually located:

Now look at these screencaps of the Florida after the attack:

From those photos does it look like the panhandle of Florida was hit by the probe? In fact, if you watch the video of the Xindi attack on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syLz0yiH2OQ&feature=related) the probe first hits Florida at a point just northwest of Lake Okeechobee in Central Florida. Did the probe hit the panhandle while I blinked? Does Panama City migrate in the future? How do you explain it?

 

[Thena]

*shrugs* Well, there was talk of relocating New Orleans after Katrina. But yeah, it was probably a goof or someone forgetting that what they'd already established about Trip.

 

[Winterwind]

I explain it as a rather glaring mistake. Unless either Panama City did indeed move or there's a second one in the state... which I don't buy. It's not unheard of to have cities with the same name in different parts of a country but not in the same region.

 

[Skywalker]

I also liked how they said the beam traveled from Florida to Venezuela, and yet the damage is nowhere near Venezuela.

Either Berman and Braga (who wrote the episode) made a goof, or the effects people don't know their geography.

 

[Pensive]

I've been bitching about that particular error in geography since I saw s3 for the first time. Apparently the writers flunked that course, or didn't care enough to fix it in light of dramatic effect (cutting down the peninsula looks cooler than cutting a tiny segment of the panhandle), or maybe Trip was born in one place and grew up in another... hell I don't know. My money is on the laziness of the writers/producers.

 

[Timo]

...maybe Trip was born in one place and grew up in another..

In "The Expanse", Trip describes the destroyed town as the one where he and his sister went to a movie theater as kids. In "Fusion", Panama City is the place where Trip went through Elementary and had his first dance, for which he practiced with his brother. And that's all we know about his childhood locations - save for the fact that in the late teens, he used to drive to the shore at a (fictional) place called Chatkin Point and stare at the moon with her girlfriend.

So if we assume that Trip and Elizabeth were born in the town that the Xindi eventually burned, but Trip and his brother soon moved to Panama City for at least some classes of Elementary, then there is no contradiction. But we'd have to learn the circumstances under which the family performed this sudden move (and split, assuming Elizabeth didn't move back and forth) to be sure.

Alternately, the kids were born in Panama City, and Trip had Elementary there, but the family moved to the path of future destruction slightly later on - at a time when Lizzy was still in the right age to "wail like a banshee" if she didn't get to go to the movies. That's a narrow time window, depending on the age difference between Trip and Liz, and the age up to which Trip would still consider himself a "kid".

To be sure, I'd favor the former explanation, as it gives the broader time window, and also allows for Trip to take those car rides to the shore in his early dating days. If he still lived along the path of destruction at that time, I'd expect him to speak of driving to the "coast", not the "shore", and perhaps not to bother with the long drive in the first place.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nebusj]

In "The Expanse", Trip describes the destroyed town as the one where he and his sister went to a movie theater as kids. In "Fusion", Panama City is the place where Trip went through Elementary and had his first dance, for which he practiced with his brother.

Ah, no, that's overstating things just a bit: we have that Bayshore Elementary in Panama City, Florida is where he went to his first dance. And yes, his friends were there and he spent weeks practicing. But the episode does fall short of stating that he went to Bayshore Elementary.

I would say that it's possible Tucker grew up in the sliced section of Florida but went to a dance while young in Panama City since the range which people can conveniently move around has been increasing steadily for the last several centuries and I doubt it's gotten any less by the 2130's. Growing up I had class trips which took me to pretty much every corner of the state and a few spots just outside the state; Bayshore Elementary may not sound like an interesting destination, but without knowing what they went for ...

However, while that could get us off the hook for the Panama City/slice problem as seen in ``The Expanse'', it really doesn't answer the follow-up mention of Panama City in ``The Augments'', which makes it pretty clear the Panama City home of Tucker's parents was destroyed in the attack.

 

[Bak_and_Blue]

I wondered about this too. Looks like a mistake. The damage didn't go through much of anything except the Everglades. Can't even make much of an argument for Orlando or Miami. Key Largo, maybe.

 

[MattJC]

Maybe the town Trip and Malcolm looked over was a town that Trip and his family spent during summer vacation and his sister resided there permanently as an adult?
I don't know, I'm just trying to fix a plot hole.
I can't think of a good one for the Venezuela mistake though.

 

[SFRabid]

Looks like it hit Orlando and Lakeland areas. Highway 27 is going through a population boom at this time. Maybe Trip's sister went to work at a retirement community. They are going up everywhere. By that time of the Xindi attack there could be millions of retired people living along that highway.

 

[SFRabid]

It would be nice if Ro_Loren would put a comment between those two pictures that make this thread so wide.

 

[SonicRanger]

Now look at these screencaps of the Florida after the attack:

If you look closely, you'll see that the scorched line of destruction is in Florida, then down to Cuba, then in Panama!

Look where Panama City in Panama is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_City

Clearly, the SFX guys drew the line of destruction between Florida and Panama City, not realizing there was a Panama City in Florida.

 

[Bak_and_Blue]

Umm, I think that might be stretching it Sonic. But good argument.

 

[Skywalker]

If you look closely, you'll see that the scorched line of destruction is in Florida, then down to Cuba, then in Panama!

Look where Panama City in Panama is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_City

Clearly, the SFX guys drew the line of destruction between Florida and Panama City, not realizing there was a Panama City in Florida.

I could buy that. It's better than the FX guys just drawing a straight line from the middle of Florida for no reason.

 

[Timo]

So, that should explain the goof from the real-world side of the argument.

But are there any showstoppers for the idea that the Panama City with the Bayshore Elementary has always been the one on the meso-American Panama?

One possible version of that theory: Tuckers live in Panama City, Panama, for most of their childhood - but young Trip and Liz also spend a lot of time in an unnamed town in Florida, a town where Liz later takes up residence. Both locations are destroyed by the Xindi, in what quite possibly is not a coincidence at all: the single line of destruction might have been optimized to hit hard on key Starfleet installations, and the Tuckers might have chosen to live close to those. It's not as if we knew anything about the Tucker family that would contradict that, I mean.

Timo Saloniemi

Edit: Went and reread the "Fusion" transcript. And it sez "Panama City, Florida" there. Dang!

 

[Ro_Laren]

So, that should explain the goof from the real-world side of the argument.

But are there any showstoppers for the idea that the Panama City with the Bayshore Elementary has always been the one on the meso-American Panama?

One possible version of that theory: Tuckers live in Panama City, Panama, for most of their childhood - but young Trip and Liz also spend a lot of time in an unnamed town in Florida, a town where Liz later takes up residence. Both locations are destroyed by the Xindi, in what quite possibly is not a coincidence at all: the single line of destruction might have been optimized to hit hard on key Starfleet installations, and the Tuckers might have chosen to live close to those. It's not as if we knew anything about the Tucker family that would contradict that, I mean.

Timo Saloniemi

Edit: Went and reread the "Fusion" transcript. And it sez "Panama City, Florida" there. Dang!

As someone mentioned above, the probe goes down the Everglades (meaning most of the time it would be hitting the swamp and not populated cities). Now you could say that in that time period that the Everglades are no more and cities are built on top of it (such as some cities in South Florida). However, another problem with that theory is Trip's accent. I have never heard anyone in Central Florida (or the Everglades) with an accent. But, up in the panhandle a lot of natives do have southern accents (such as my father who is from Tallahassee). In Trip's time period, is everyone in Florida speaking with a southern accent???

 

[bluedana]

However, another problem with that theory is Trip's accent. I have never heard anyone in Central Florida (or the Everglades) with an accent. But, up in the panhandle a lot of natives do have southern accents (such as my father who is from Tallahassee). In Trip's time period, is everyone in Florida speaking with a southern accent???

The better question would be, does ANYBODY in Florida speak with a southern accent. And I would expect the answer, 150 years from now and today, would be, yes, they do. People move around enough that accents aren't confined to one region anymore. You can have people in the same family who speak with various accents, due to personal travel, TV, who their friends are. I live in a region known for its accent, and everybody doesn't sound the same, certainly not the way it was a generation or two ago. My own accent varies, depending on who I'm talking to.

 

[Ro_Laren]

However, another problem with that theory is Trip's accent. I have never heard anyone in Central Florida (or the Everglades) with an accent. But, up in the panhandle a lot of natives do have southern accents (such as my father who is from Tallahassee). In Trip's time period, is everyone in Florida speaking with a southern accent???

The better question would be, does ANYBODY in Florida speak with a southern accent. And I would expect the answer, 150 years from now and today, would be, yes, they do. People move around enough that accents aren't confined to one region anymore. You can have people in the same family who speak with various accents, due to personal travel, TV, who their friends are. I live in a region known for its accent, and everybody doesn't sound the same, certainly not the way it was a generation or two ago. My own accent varies, depending on who I'm talking to.

Are you asking if anyone in Florida has an accent now? As in native Floridians? If so, the answer is yes. My father was born in Tallahassee and he has a southern accents (as do the members of his family). However, I am also a native Floridian (born in Central Florida and now live in another area of the state) and I do not have a Southern accent. I have about the same accent as newscasters. That goes to prove that a) not all Floridians have accents and b) just because a member of your family has an accident doesn't mean that you will (incidently my mother is from North Carolina and has an even stronger accent then my father).

Therefore, if Trip was born and raised in Central Florida how would he have an accent unless in the future people around that area will also have southern accents? I say this to point out a flaw in the theory that maybe Panama City migrates in the future.

 

[Timo]

But that of course cuts both ways. It is perfectly possible that the people in the Tucker family have a Louisiana accent even when none of their neighbors do.

Granted that the ENT society doesn't yet have transporters for that complete "global village" feel, but as pointed out upthread, there'd be lots more movement of people and ideas tomorrow than there's today. Accents might survive, or die out, or migrate. And yes, cities might migrate, too. (I'd expect the Californian ones to have undergone a few changes at least, considering the landscape changes referred to in "Future's End".)

And it sounds plausible enough that Everglades would be either densely populated in the future, or then remain sparsely populated and thus be prime real estate for important Starfleet facilities and their associated hangaround communities. Certainly the Xindi didn't hit that part of Earth for nothing; if they wanted random destruction, they'd at least have taken care to "draw the line" across land rather than near-harmlessly across water.

In the end, we still lack confirmation that the Xindi destroyed Panama City, Florida, or that they destroyed Trip's original hometown, whether those are the same or not. All we really know is that they destroyed the town where Trip's sister lived and where Trip and Liz shared some childhood memories - and that Trip's parents moved away from Panama City some time afterwards, but not necessarily as the result of the Xindi attack. So, against writer intention, we might still claim that the US Panama City was not hit, even though the other Panama City that in the future belongs to the expansive nation of Venezuela apparently was.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Blueicus]

I can certainly see Venezuela and Columbia forming some sort of Alliance during WW3 and using the chaos of the conflict to seize Panama. Perhaps maritime shipping had made a temporary comeback during that period and Panama became a very important place for trade. Of course I doubt the writers or graphic artists were thinking along those lines