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!Fridge Brilliance
* If you've played the game to a certain point, Nolan's plan in the pilot to [[spoiler:defeat the Volge using the Terrasphere]] will sound familiar. [[spoiler:The Defiant Few used the same tactic to defeat Dark Matter at the battle of Defiance.]]
* Possibly accidental Fridge Brilliance: casting several British actors as the aliens and having them use generic American Accents. Possibly offering an in-universe explanation for any occasional accent slippage or pronunciation oddities? After all, these are aliens and English isn't their first language by a long shot.
* Datak compares the affairs of Defiance to threads in a rug, stating that knowing how they all come together is the key to getting information. In the encounter between Nolan and Stahma after she [[spoiler:convinces the Mayor to appoint Datak to the town council]], she is seen weaving threads together during the town council's meeting. This is also much like a "spider spinning her web." Stahma has proven to be the more calculating of the two, with her threads going everywhere.
* The story of Hunter Bell and Tommy is intended to be a foil to Datak and Alak. In the former, Tommy is compelled to investigate Bell's murder out of obligation to the elder for his moment of benefaction. In the latter, Alak does the opposite - defying his elder because he feels no obligation.
* The reveal of Nolan's war record explains his present ChronicHeroSyndrome. He's trying to atone for the things he's done.
* The foreshadowing statement Stahma makes to Kenya: [[spoiler: "You don't know Castithans."]] Later, Kenya is smart enough to [[spoiler:bring a gun to the meeting with Stahma, but not enough to realize that Stahma is wearing gloves, and the poison is ''on'' the flask. She truly did not know what Castithans are capable of.]]
* In the midst of his VillainousBreakdown, Datak says he misses home. Wait, back home he was a nobody, on the lowest rung on the social ladder. Why would he miss that? Well, back home, at least things ''made sense'' to him. He had a rotten place in Castithan society, but at least he had a place. Here on Earth, he has no predetermined role in society. He consequently has ''no idea'' how to act. He keeps trying to do what he believes a proper upper-class Castithan male should be doing. The things he does to get the respect and respectability he so desperately craves probably would have worked back on Daribo, and he just can't get his mind around the fact that they're not working on Earth.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Votan Votan]] is a figure from Mayan legend. He was either a founder of a dynasty or a completely mythical culture hero; no one's really sure anymore, but he was an important figure in Pre-Columbian myth and legend. The Votan ship carrying the kaziri crash-landed (or did it?) in what is now Missouri somewhere around 3000 BC. Plenty of time to pass into myth and legend by the time the Mayan civilization arose. And when you consider Aztec legend that Quetzalcoatl was pale-skinned...hmm, were there any Castithans onboard that ship?
* Terraforming:
** Earth is incompletely and badly terraformed because [[spoiler: the ''Kaziri'',]] which was sent ahead to begin terraforming Earth, held about 9:30 of the terraforming equipment.
** The main Votan immigration fleet only had enough terraforming equipment to correct any smaller problems with terraforming, and had planned for [[spoiler: Earth to already be terraformed by the time they got there]].
** That means that the Votan fleet arrived with very different expectations that what they actually found. No wonder they were shocked and surprised by so much of Earth and humanity.
* While Treasure Doll's [[spoiler: murder]] is being investigated, Amanda has flashbacks of relevant conversations she's had with her. However, in these flashbacks, Treasure Doll is painted in a very positive light, as a lost girl in love. Since we know that [[spoiler: she seduced Alak, tried to poison a pregnant Christe so that she'd have a miscarriage, repeatedly asserted that she just wants a rich and high-class husband, etc.]] that seems dissonant - until you realize that the flashbacks are Amanda's memories, and thus we're seeing Treasure Doll through Amanda's eyes.
* Castithans have pure white skin and heightened senses, especially smell. This means that it is very easy for them to tell when they are dirty, which in turn explains why bathing is such a central part of their culture. Indeed, their preference for bathing in company with family members may be a way of ''sharing'' their scents with one another, the better to reinforce and advertise their household's solidarity.
* Irathients have a reputation as smelly savages, and in fact often shun high technology in favor of a nomadic lifestyle. One of the primary benefits of civilization is medicine--and due to the fact that Irathients are immune to most diseases, that's not a problem they have to worry about, leading to them being more likely to return to nature.
* For the game, Rosa Rodriguez is noted to use Spanish incorrectly when she's angry or excited. When you take into account the events of the show/game's in-universe history, it's possible explanation is the fact that she was raised during the war, and seeing that the post-Arkfall world has normal Earth people using Votan languages and words, it's possible that Rosa may be bilingual, and Spanish may not be her native tongue. The fridge brilliance: there's a good chance that normal Earth languages may be slowly dying out and may become disused by future generations (much like how Latin has become a dead language) due to the world basically becoming a giant melting pot of native and Votan races. Or, it's possible Rosa's father relocated his family to the United States while Rosa was still young, and doesn't remember how to use it properly.
* In the series' pilot, Clancy, the Lawkeeper of the town, tells Nolan, a member of the Defiant Few, that the town was named after that fight. Nolan says, "EVERYTHING was named after that fight." In the game, you can see that the Crater serves a beer called "Defiance Beer."
* [[spoiler: Nolan and Doc Yewll flying off into the universe together makes a lot of sense. Yewll and Nolan both had their share of clashing, and there's a good reason why: Both of them had been trying to find redemption for the horrible acts they both committed during the Pale Wars. Doc Yewll was comfortable with performing a DeathEqualsRedemption by staying behind on the Omec ship to keep the self-destructing of it occurring. Nolan originally was okay with destroying the Omec ship, but after his HeelFaceTurn due to Irisa, he was willing to also die if the plan to take the ship off didn't work when trying it. But now, both Yewll and Nolan have found redemption at the same time and together.]]
* The Gateway Arch surviving the terraforming event seems like a weird thing to have happened in the show. However, when you take into the actual history of real the Gateway Arch, a noticeable theme shows, making some sense as to why the show's creators chose to have the Arch being the only thing remaining of Old St. Louis after the events of the Pale Wars and the terraforming while the town sunk underground: the development of the real life park had major difficulty and took decades to perform. The man who started the project, Luther Eli Smith, started the project of a memorial park in the 1935. The park's construction got delayed by several small issues, such as lawsuits from landowners, and major historical events including World War II. Smith continued to lobby and work on the project after World War II when it could have easily gone to the wayside. Even the Arch's actual construction period was challenging, in addition to the structural and environmental challenges that the construction crews faced. Essentially, the Arch's entire existence was built in defiance of all odds and challenges thrown at it. If the history of the Arch in the show is the same, and including the show's universe and history, the Arch continues to remain standing in defiance of everything that has happened. Even after [[spoiler:having been bombed in Season 3 and having a significant portion of it missing]], it still remains standing by the series' conclusion. Amanda Rosewater was right in her speech to the town to rally them to fight the Volge in the premiere episode: despite everything that's happened, the Arch remained standing, and is a fitting icon for a small town named Defiance.
** In addition, many saw the Arch remaining standing after [[spoiler:it was missing a large section after being bombed in Season 3]] as impossible. However, many people do not realize that the Arch was constructed in a way that it was two separate towers that were being constructed at the same time, starting at the bottom. Also, the real Arch had steel tensioning rods that were extended as the Arch was being constructed in addition to several backup bars welded), which was used to hold the Arch up. Given there are actual historical pictures of the Arch's construction that shows larger gaps than what was shown from the section missing in the show, how the Arch remains standing as it looks at the end of the series is possible. [[CoversAlwaysLie However, this is could be averted for the promotional material for Season 1, as it's hard to know if the Arch would remain standing as it was with where the gap was photoshopped in the ads, while in the show the Arch is still structurally intact until the events of Season 3]].
* When Deirdre Lamb (aka Treasure Doll) is first introduced as [=DJing=] for the radio station, the song that plays is called "Dead Girl Walking". [[spoiler:Not only is it a foreshadow of her eventual death]], it is also an EasterEgg reference to the show's co-creator and Executive Producer Kevin Murphy, as the song featured in the episode is a remix of the song from the Musical Adaptation of the 1988 Teen Dark Comedy, ''Heathers'', which he performed the adaptation of. However, the foreshadow can be missed due to the fact the song's lyrics are redone in the Votan language instead of the Earth language.

!Fridge Horror
* It's explained that the Irathient population of Defiance fought against vaccinations for their children and were incredibly hostile for what the mayor assumed were religious reasons. Those crazy aliens, eh? In the game it's shown how [[spoiler:the EMC were experimenting with viruses that explicitly targeted alien biology and tested it under the guise of...vaccinations for the Votan populace]].
* The "Strongest and Bravest" of the ark hunters have retired in Antarctica. In a business where people hold each other at gunpoint and steal each other's stuff maybe she meant the most ruthless and violent. That would make Antarctica one hell of a place. Comments in-game and out imply that Antarctica is just another desolate wasteland, with any Ark Hunters making the trip getting killed by an unknown party so word can't get back to inhabited areas. After all, it would require much more than terraforming for Antarctica to be anything other than a cold-blighted nightmare.
* Assuming the organ-harvesting doctor is telling the truth, we've just learned another reason why the post-terraforming Earth is a major CrapsackWorld: polio, a horribly debilitating illness almost completely eradicated from the industrialized world, has returned, mostly likely due to the absence of reliable vaccinations. So not only have we lost air travel and long-distance telecommunications, we've lost modern medicine too. Lovely.
** In addition to that: new viruses and diseases born of the new Earth and species that came, in addition to any possible viruses that were modified to be used as weapons during the war (much like the one that Doc Yewll discusses with Lev in Season 2). Amanda, in the pilot episode, noted that the town had suffered through "pandemics." That's right, the viral hemorrhagic fever suffered by the town in the series wasn't the only one in this new world. And considering how bad the victims in the Bay have suffered it by becoming the Afflicted, Defiance got off light in comparison.
** Also, it's not just limited to viruses and plagues either. Pilar [=McCawley=] is a great example of what happens when mental health services no longer exist. Due to the war and the devastation caused by it, medication for her mental illness stopped being produced, leading to some dangerous and violent behavior (as in, she tried to kill her kids). Even if psychiatrists and psychologists still exist, they have no way to treat or manage mental illnesses that can be somewhat managed currently.
* The Omec. No mention of them was made before they suddenly appeared in orbit, because the other Votans thought they were all dead. They were a well-known and much-feared menace in the Votanis System, and nobody every mentioned them before because they figured they were gone, so why bother bringing them up again? What else haven't the Votans told us, simply because they thought it didn't matter any more? What further horrors are out there?
* UnfortunateImplications:
** The Irathients mentioning the use of [[GasChamber chlorine gas]] mass executions.
** Nolan also mentions oxygen bombs that were used on Liberata (who breath nitrogen), thus likely both suffocating them and/or burning them.
** Black Jonah carries what is unquestionably a ~100 year old Luger pistol. Given who he is and what he does, both the choice to carry a century-old museum piece, and exactly choosing that specific museum piece, is definitely [[PuttingOnTheReich no coincidence]]. Pottinger also uses one, and Berlin even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] her similarity to Leni Riefenstahl. (It's even more obvious when noting that Riefenstahl was young, attractive, and met frequently with top officials in the German Reich)
** The Earth Republic soldiers (especially ''Berlin'') wear uniforms that have distinct callbacks to the Hugo Boss uniform styles of the SS.
** The "refueling" ship is actually a Gulanee ship. The Earth Republic was clearly intending to use these energy beings as [[PoweredByAForsakenChild a power source]]. The question is, did the Votans do the same thing?
** In the 1960s and 1970s the Viet Cong were called "VC". It's probably coincidental, but the series has taken to referring to the Votanis Collective as "VC" and showing humans relating stories of casual Votan racism as well as wartime atrocities against civilians. And the E-Rep and VC are both angling for a way to restart the Pale Wars, which means showing Votans as the enemy may well prove a crisis point for Defiance.
* Nolan could easily have accidentally restarted the Pale Wars in "When Twilight Dims the Sky Above".
* Indogenes are mentioned to have been a SlaveRace and T'evgin reveals that their skin can be used to patch up wounds if necessary. Now, if they were truly designed to be slaves, there's only one reason to include that feature, and that's to use an entire species as walking bloodbags. Ugh.
* Fridge Horror borderlining on Fridge Brilliance: in Season 3, when the body of a dead Indogene is found, Doc Yewll tells Samir, "Hey, hands of my body!" Later on, [[spoiler:Yewll discovers that the body is of a clone of her. She inadvertently told Samir to literally "keep your hands off ''my'' body", and not realized it until the reveal]].
* Another fridge horror that comes to mind is the Afflicted from the game. They are described as "victims of a viral hemorrhagic plague." At the time they were introduced, it was around the same time of the premiere of the episode "If I Ever Leave This World Alive", with the town of Defiance dealing with a similar viral hemorrhagic plague. Though it's unclear if the plague seen in town is an earlier variant to the one seen in the game, but the fact that the victims in town died can be considered a good thing. Had it been the same variant as those seen in the victims in San Francisco, the town could have been swarmed with aggressive, zombie-like victims with no means of defending themselves (mostly because of the limited amount of weapons in their cache due to Nolan's interference in "A Well Respected Man" and no one in town sporting EGO units like the players of the game, who are able to easily handle the Afflicted).