I'm two episodes in on this three-episode mini-series (warning, spoilers). The sets are amazing. The cast is very good.
The story-- It could have been so good. A locked-room mystery within a larger "locked room" in the form of a multigenerational starship? I'm there! And all that wrapped in a vast conspiracy? Even better! --Had they stopped there. They didn't. Nope. Having noticed that the label said "SCIENCE FICTION!11!!one!!!" the writers threw whatever they could think of at the wall, including 2-generation genetic drift, psionic powers and some "bureaucratic SF" in the manner of The X-Files. And then had the gall to hinge some critical developments on a Idiot Plot of the worst sort, a child frightened to take her yearly immunization booster shot, which no one in the entire medical facility aboard the starship can figure out how to give to her. Yep, not main force, not a tranquilizer, not general anesthesia, the doctors and nurses try none of those....
It's worth watching for the sets. It's worth watching for the characters and their various plots. But if it was my project, there's a whole thread that would get edited out.
Interestingly, the writers don't quite get JFK's United States, which is when the generation ship was launched. As a result, there are social elements that ring false, or could at least use more explanation. The writers also don't have a good handle on the kind of infrastructure that it takes to develop and build handheld electronics and small removable digital memory devices. Large-scale integrated circuits are not trivial; neither are medium-resolution LCD displays.
Still more fun than not, but it could have been great with slightly fewer ingredients.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
7 comments:
I was really disappointed in it. They stuffed everything into that show, and burst the seams doing it.
Immunization booster shots?
In a multi-generational sealed-environment starship where nobody even gets colds?
I've idly kicked around the multi-gen ship concept, and each time I come to the conclusion it just won't work, since so much of what we know comes from dealing with an environ massively more complex than a ship could ever reproduce.
Our street-smarts would go right in the crapper. Wherever we would end up at, nearly everything we will just have to learn all over again. With a mortality rate to match.
On the other hand, as a kid, I hated lots of school since I would never use that rote tripe IRL...
Why wouldn't they get colds? The original crew doesn't get autoclaved before launch and if there are enough people to form a viable community -- I'd ballpark that as not less than 1000 and likely more -- there will be cold viruses. There will also be cosmic rays, even with good shielding, along with plenty of "interesting things" in the environment; this makes new-variant viruses a certainty.
I think an environment sufficiently complex to be self-sustaining for at least three generations will be sufficiently complex of human "street smarts" to be in play. The wide range of *different* stimuli and frequent travel of modern civilization is an historical anomaly. Most of our ancestors were born, lived and died within a few square miles.
Rob K: they kinda almost saved it with the last scene, but everything is left in such a mess!
Ms. X, you are 100 percent correct on the cosmic rays. Nothing like an iron nuclei moving at nearly the speed o light to machine-gun beings, and more importantly, mutating their DNA. We've detected some moving so close to the speed-o-light, that one nucleus had the kinetic energy of a 75 mph fastball. Just. One. Nuclei.(They called it the 'Oh My God' particle.)
Actually, we have a massive starship waiting for us (relativity) nearby. The hull was laid down about 3 billion years back, all we have to do is finish it.
Asteroid 16 Psyche. It is suspected to be a proto-planet core, made of solid iron-nickel. NASA wants to take a look at it soon, for commercial mining potential. It's big, about 200 km in diameter, kinda potato shaped.
If it is solid, that has *huge* possibilities, ease of mining just one of them. To start, carve out a cave and install a hatch. Pressurized, miners work in relative comfort. The mining shafts become space station corridors. As much iron-nickle shielding as you want from cosmic rays.
It would make a dandy asteroid belt space station, later on down the line, a big-assed starship. Make the corridors closer to the surface living quarters, then spin the whole thing for artificial gravity.
It kinda pisses me off I likely won't live to see it as a vacation destination...
Anon 9:42, that's very kewl stuff! Thank you for sharing it. :)
I didn't get to see it (perhaps ought), but I was interested in what you said about the writers not getting JFK's America. That is something like why I watched a couple of episodes of Mad Men and gave up: it reminded me of a bunch of grade-school kids playing dress-up.
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