What the **** was Mike Yates Thinking?

[Guy Gardener]

After watching the Dinosaur Invasion the other day I gained a new appreciation for Primeval, but I had to wonder what sort of machine was inside the TARDIS that gave Sarah Jane such an awful new haircut inbetween this episode and the Time Warrior. I'm sure if the Doctor would have cut her hair that badly that we wouldn't have heard the end of it....

So Yates decided that destroying the world was a good idea?

Turning back time so that 200 of the best human beings could set up shop in dinosaur times?

Maybe not dinosaur times, but certainly some hypothetical "golden age".

People have only been around for 2 million years, even if the Silurians claimed to have used man as a cow. Certainly a bloody good reason to avoid setting up shop in Dinosaur times.

200 people don't have the genetic diversity to create a stable genepool.

The third generation will just be a shit load of cousinsex, flippers and cyclopses.

Gods, the BSG lot assumed they were doomed with 50,000 warm bodies rutting to keep warm in the cold dead of space.

So Mike, Captain Yates decided to destroy the world.

WTF?

(Yes he comes back, but I'm not up to that disk yet.)

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I love it when Guy gets a snootful.

 

[SG-17]

If there are 3 males to every 1 female (and the females have numerous children with each of the 3 men), a population as low as 75 is enough to establish sufficient genetic diversity to prevent serious inbreeding problems.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Convincing women that polyandrony is a good idea comes off as somewhat sleazy... however I recall phlox descibing the family lines of how each of his 2 wives had two other husbands who had two other.. and so on.... I go on at length about the sex pits of Denobula here

The Irish Colonists from TNG Up The Long Ladder got 3 clones each to breed with. They seemed fine with adopting the new world view.

Then of course there's homosexuality to consider that some men and women wouldn't want even one other-gendered spouse/breeding partner, gods forbid three plus which is a question I was wondering about on Stagate the other day.

 

[captcalhoun]

they probably made sure not to pick homosexuals, though, purely for the need to breed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was the 70s.

Most of "the homos" were still in hiding in case NuHitler started building camps again, no matter how welcoming and accepting Are You being Served or Carry On made it seem.

Besides they had Edith from 'Allo 'Allo as their protem leader, and she was well past her most fertile moments by a scant three decades.

Then you have a pert little Sarah Jane they were perfectly willing to murder to protect the wholesomeness of their society when she would have been good for a dozen babies or so over the next 20 years.

They were obviously choosing people for the depth of their character (sporting heroes, poets and politicians...) and not the width of their hips.

 

[Count Zero]

Usually, it's not a good idea to analyse the plots of that era's stories in any depth. Invasion of the Dinosaurs isn't even the worst offender.
Anyway, I think Mike Yates deluded himself into thinking that what they were doing was harmless. He got really upset when actual people were targeted to be killed, yet apparently had no problem with most of humanity being wiped from existence. In a way, this does really happen in regimes so it's not as silly as it seems at first.

 

[Guy Gardener]

So we're to think that he didn't know that he was on a suicide kick?

Besides what about the paradox?

Mightn't the colonists cease to exist if they were dstroying the world they came from?

Or is that what they meant by cracking the Blinovitch limitation effect?

 

[Cutter John]

Maybe he had problems with depression? Lord knows I've had bad days when I've thought that a virulent plague would solve a lot of the worlds problems.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Depression?

It's not like the love of his life just sailed off, up the Amazon looking for Mushrooms with a hippy.

 

[Cutter John]

Some of us get depressed just by having to get out of bed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Some of us are real people with real problems.

Guiltfree, Mike got to shoot evil aliens in the face for a living.

His life was a high def modern video game in the days of pong.

Now "night terrors" would have been the sort of mental problem I'd have expected, not depression.

 

[Count Zero]

It seems he became deeply cynical about the world due to the events in The Green Death. Basically, he found out that the government of the country he deeply identified with, a government he therefore probably thought to be honourable would protect ruthless corporations and cover up all sorts of shady things. There were actually plenty of points before that where this became apparent, e.g. Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sea Devils and The Claws of Axos. So I think he grew disillusioned, then cynical and the giant maggots pushed him over the edge. The only solution he thought was viable was having mankind start over.

 

[Cutter John]

^ Oooh, I like that.